s 
 
 cl. 
 
 THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 RIVERSIDE
 
 LECTURES ON CLASSICAL SUBJECTS
 
 l!)ti:aa<=l&:H>e 
 
 LECTURES 
 
 ON 
 
 CLASSICAL SUBJECTS 
 
 / 
 
 W; R. HARDIE, M.A. 
 
 PROFESSOR OF HUMANITY IN THE UNIVERSITY OF EDINBURGH 
 FORMERLY FELLOW OF BALLIOL COLLEGE, OXFORD 
 
 IConiion 
 MACMILLAN AND CO., Limited 
 
 NEW YORK : THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 
 1903 
 
 All rights reserr/ed
 
 i- 1 o 7 
 
 GLASGOW : PRINTED AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS 
 EY ROBERT MACLEHOSE AND CO.
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 I HAVE called this book ' Lectures,' partly 
 because a simple title of this kind would have 
 been natural to the Greeks and Romans, partly 
 because I could not devise one which would 
 describe it more exactly. An old Oxford 
 rhyme has been in my mind : 
 
 ' Do not to many lectures go, 
 For whether you do so or no, 
 You'll find the substance of his notes 
 Much better in the books he quotes '— 
 
 * much better,' no doubt, intrinsically, but often 
 scattered, and not very accessible, and some- 
 times too controversial and complicated to be of 
 use to the student. The Professional Scholar 
 will not find much, if anything, that is new to 
 him in this volume. It is not to him that it 
 is addressed : 
 
 ' Persium non euro legere, Laelium Decumum volo.' 
 This D, Laelius, Cicero says, was ' vir bonus 
 et non inlitteratus, sed nihil ad Persium.' 
 
 i
 
 vi PREFACE 
 
 The first five lectures are concerned with the 
 spirit and ideas of the classical poets : the next 
 two with the form of their poetry : the remaining 
 three are added in the hope that they may be 
 useful or suggestive to students as an introduction 
 to the large subjects of which they treat, and 
 of which they do not for a moment profess to 
 give a complete account. 
 
 The lecture on ' Literary Criticism at Rome ' 
 was composed before Prof Saintsbury published 
 the first volume of his History of Criticism : I 
 have included it here, because it is so different 
 in scale, so much slighter and shorter, that it 
 hardly comes into competition with his treatment 
 of the subject. In the lecture on Romance I 
 find that I have unknowingly touched upon a 
 subject dealt with by Prof. Butcher. I knew his 
 ' Aspects of the Greek Genius ' in its first edition, 
 and I think I had assumed — it was long before 
 there was any question of becoming his colleague 
 — that the second edition did not differ from it 
 in contents. My lecture was one of a group, and 
 resembled the others in subject and treatment : 
 so I have refrained, though with some reluctance, 
 from excising it. 
 
 What I have written about Horace's metres
 
 PREFACE vii 
 
 was finally printed before I had seen Prof. 
 Sonnenschein's interesting exposition of the ac- 
 centual theory of the Latin Sapphic {Class. Rev., 
 June, 1903). I should have liked to discuss that 
 view, though I do not agree with it. I do not 
 say that accent had nothing to do with the matter 
 at all : some Roman innovations in metre seem 
 to me to be due to the fact that the stronger 
 Latin accent, if it coincided with ictus, made the 
 metrical structure too obvious (p. 240). But is it 
 likely that an Augustan poet, and Horace in 
 particular, would, in one of his metres and not in 
 others, deliberately aim at an accentual structure ? 
 Nothing can be inferred from the regular incidence 
 of accent in his Sapphics : given a ' caesura ' 
 where he usually put it (p. 253), and given the 
 principles of Latin accentuation, that regularity 
 was inevitable. Eickhoff, I think, mistook an 
 effect for a cause. 
 
 On many points I am indebted to discussions 
 with pupils or friends, but it would have 
 been cumbrous and difficult to trace such 
 obligations in detail. In most cases I have 
 tried to indicate in a footnote some of the 
 books where a fuller treatment of the subject 
 may be found. But I should be sorry to be
 
 viii PREFACE 
 
 understood as recommending the perusal of 
 modern works about the classics in preference 
 to a study of the ancient writers themselves. 
 No doubt I am adding one to the number of 
 such modern dissertations : but that misdeed 
 may be in part atoned for, if some of these 
 lectures be thought to set a useful example of 
 a simple and unambitious line of inquiry, which 
 consists rather in collecting and arranging what 
 the ancients have to say on some important 
 topic than in theorising about it or criticising 
 the theories of other people. 
 
 W. R. HARDIE. 
 
 July, 1903.
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 pa(;e 
 
 I. The Feeling for Nature in the Greek 
 
 AND Roman Poets. ----- i 
 
 II. The Beliefs of the Greeks and Romans 
 
 concerning a Life after Death, - 36 
 
 III. The Supernatural in Ancient Poetry 
 
 AND Story, - - - - - - 71 
 
 IV. The Age of Gold, 102 
 
 V. The Vein of Romance in Greek and 
 
 Roman Literature, - - - - 132 
 
 VI. The Language of Poetry, - - - 162 
 
 VII. The Metrical Form of Poetry, - - 201 
 
 ix
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 VIII. Literary Criticism at Rome, - - - 263 
 
 IX. A Sketch of the Revival and Progress 
 
 OF Classical Studies in Europe, - 288 
 
 X. Aims and Methods of Classical Study, 309 
 
 Index of Names and Subjects, - - - - 337 
 
 Index of Greek Words, 346 
 
 Index of Latin Words, . . - . - 348
 
 I. 
 
 THE FEELING FOR NATURE IN THE 
 GREEK AND ROMAN POETS. 
 
 ovx a.fjuv TO. KaXa npcLTOLS Ka\a (paiverai el/xev, 
 ot dvoLTol Tre\6fjieff6a to d' avpiov ovk eaopQ/j.€s. 
 
 Theocritus. 
 
 One of the minor poets of the eighteenth 
 century discusses in an ode called ' The 
 Enthusiast ' the question whether man can find 
 real happiness in communing with Nature. It 
 is not possible, is his answer. 
 
 'Art thou not man, and dar'st thou find 
 A bliss that leans not to mankind ? 
 Presumptuous thought and vain ! ' 
 
 This poem of Whitehead's belongs to the middle 
 of the century, and its view of Nature may be 
 taken as representative of the age. But a change 
 was at hand : a new movement was besfinnins 
 both in this country and on the continent of 
 
 A
 
 2 LECTURES ON CLASSICAL SUBJECTS 
 
 Europe. Thomson's Seasons had already been 
 written, and by 1750 it had been translated into 
 German, The classicism or pseudo-classicism of 
 the first half of the century was to be dethroned. 
 A revolt was declared against the artificial and 
 conventional : there was to be 'a return to 
 Nature.' The writings of Rousseau were one of 
 the strongest forces on the side of change, 
 affecting political and social matters as well 
 as poetry and speculative thought. The move- 
 ment was a complex one : it meant different 
 things for different people, and sometimes it 
 resulted only in a new kind of artificiality. But 
 at all events it had distinct and recognisable 
 results in literature. It brought with it an 
 enthusiasm for primitive and simple poetry, or 
 what was supposed to be such, for Homer, 
 Macpherson's Ossian, the Niebelungenlied. And 
 within a century from the date of ' The 
 Enthusiast ' several notable changes had taken 
 place in the attitude of poetry to Nature. 
 Sir Walter Scott had lent a new charm to 
 natural scenery by linking it with heroic story 
 and romantic adventure. Poetic appreciation of I 
 Nature became wider in its range : it began 
 to include her wilder and sterner aspects as
 
 THE FEELING FOR NATURE 
 
 well as her more peaceful ones, Lucretius 
 thinks of mountains as waste ground — as en- 
 croaching upon, and rendering useless for man, 
 a large portion of the earth's surface.^ But 
 to Byron mountains and torrents and stormy 
 seas are no longer merely repellent, comfortless 
 or terrible : they begin to have a beauty and 
 a fascination of their own. The ' magic ' or 
 ' mystery ' of Nature was probably, as Mr. 
 Matthew Arnold contends, an element of Celtic 
 origin in modern literature : certainly the 
 Ossianic heroes are more at home amid thunder 
 and storm-clouds than a Greek would have been, 
 and they remind one of a curious remark 
 made by Aristotle in the Ethics, that ' the 
 Celts have no fear of waves or earthquakes.' ^ 
 In Wordsworth, again, there appeared con- 
 spicuously the idea of a kind of companionship 
 with Nature, the belief that Nature can do much 
 for man : solace and strength may be derived 
 from associating with her, the mind is tranquil- 
 lised and refined in her presence. Nature has 
 
 ^ ' Inde avidi partem monies silvaeque ferarum 
 possederc' — LucR. v. 201. 
 '^Contrast with this the horror felt by Achilles at the thought 
 of perishing in a river ' like a swineherd boy who is swept away 
 B when he crosses a ford in winter.' — //. xxi. 281.
 
 4 LECTURES ON CLASSICAL SUBJECTS 
 
 become a moral and educative power ; she is 
 endowed with a voice, and she promises that 
 the human nursHng entrusted to her care shall 
 be guided aright, 
 
 ' In rock and plain, 
 In earth and heaven, and glade and bower, 
 Shall feel an overseeing power 
 To kindle or restrain.' ^ 
 
 All this is very far removed from the attitude 
 of Whitehead. 
 
 These are very familiar facts or tendencies, 
 but it is well to recall them now. If we are 
 setting out to look for appreciation of Nature 
 in ancient poets, we must realise first what it 
 is we are looking for. There are clearly several 
 quite distinct aspects of the modern feeling for 
 Nature, aspects which our slight historical sketch 
 has not exhausted or analysed. There is, to 
 begin with, the interest in exact and vivid 
 description of Nature, an interest which, perhaps, 
 belongs rather to the painter than to the poet, 
 but one which only a very narrow conception 
 of poetry could exclude — the poet, in fact, some- 
 times has an advantage over the painter, as 
 
 ^ The poem beginning, ' Three years she grew in sun and 
 shower. '
 
 THE FEELING FOR NATURE 
 
 when he puts in a few words the effect of 
 waves breaking on a moonlit beach : 
 
 ' Like fire in snow the moonlight blazed 
 Amid the champing foam.' 
 
 Secondly, there is the romantic and emotional 
 appeal to Nature for sympathy, coupled with 
 the belief or imagination that Nature responds 
 and changes with the changing moods of man, 
 her sunshine accompanying his happiness, while 
 her gloom and storm echo his misery and 
 despair. This also might be illustrated from 
 the ballad which I have just quoted, by the 
 boding storm which hangs over the coast of 
 Fife on the fatal night when King James rode 
 to Perth.^ And thirdly, there is the Words- 
 worthian view, the more comprehensive view of 
 Nature as a whole, which belongs to thought 
 and reflection rather than to feeling and pas- 
 sion, an idea which we must look for, if at all, 
 in the philosophers rather than in the poets of 
 the ancient world. The second of these ten- 
 dencies is what Ruskin has called the ' Pathetic 
 Fallacy,' and it may be useful to recall a triple 
 
 ^ A good example is to lie found in a short poem of Tenny- 
 son's, 'The Letters,' where storm and starlight answer to the 
 quarrel and reconciliation of the lovers.
 
 6 LECTURES ON CLASSICAL SUBJECTS 
 
 distinction which he draws in the chapter of 
 Modern Painters where the subject is discussed. 
 We are looking, it is to be remembered, for 
 definite ideas or tests which can be applied to 
 ancient poetry : we wish to ask ' Where does 
 this occur ? ' ' Where that ? ' Ruskin distin- 
 guishes three kinds of vision, or three ways of 
 looking at things. There is the vision of the 
 plain or common man, who sees clearly because 
 he neither feels acutely nor thinks deeply, for 
 whom a primrose is a yellow primrose and 
 nothing more. Then there is the vision of the 
 romantic or sentimental poet, who feels strongly 
 and allows his feeling to colour the prospect for 
 him, and does not see things simply as they 
 are : ' Frown upon me, and the landscape grows 
 wintry ; smile, and spring is aflower again.' ^ 
 And lastly, we have the vision of the strongest 
 and greatest poets, who feel acutely and think 
 deeply, but still see clearly, who are not blinded 
 or led astray by their emotion. This type of 
 vision is conspicuous in Homer, and an illustra- 
 tion is found in the passage where Helen looks 
 in vain for her brothers Castor and Pollux : 
 
 ^ f]v ixoL (Tvvv€(j)k% d/iifxa ^dXris irori, X^'M" M5opKa, 
 
 ^v 5' iXapbv ^X^iprjs, ijSii riOrjXev iap. — Meleager.
 
 THE FEELING FOR NATURE 
 
 ' the nurturing earth covered them, at home in 
 
 Lacedaemon ' — (pvcri^oog ala, the earth is still the 
 
 mother of all, though Castor and Pollux be 
 
 dead. Sometimes the poet's feeling takes the 
 
 form of a protest against the immutability of 
 
 Nature ; of this there is a simple and familiar 
 
 example in the lines : 
 
 ' Ye banks and braes o' bonny Doon, 
 How can ye bloom sae fresh and fair ? ' 
 
 The expectation of a response is, indeed, 
 
 illusory, as Ruskin's name for it implies ; 
 
 and even the idea that prolonged communing 
 
 with Nature can tranquillise or satisfy the 
 
 human spirit is true only with limitations, and 
 
 is by no means the general creed of modern 
 
 poets. The moral of Shelley's Alastor, for 
 
 instance, is that Nature does not suffice alone : 
 
 severance of all human ties ends in ruin and 
 
 despair : the poet finds himself 
 
 ' Wasting these surpassing powers 
 In the deaf air, to the bhnd earth and heaven. 
 That echoes not my thoughts — ' 
 
 to the winds, as an ancient poet puts it, 
 
 ' quae nullis sensibus auctae 
 nee missas audire queunt nee reddere voces.' ' 
 
 1 Catullus, Ixiv. 165.
 
 8 LECTURES ON CLASSICAL SUBJECTS 
 
 To what extent do the modern feelings and 
 fancies about Nature appear in ancient poets ? 
 Are they at all fully anticipated ? The usual, 
 and substantially true, answer is that they 
 appear to a very slight extent. Like White- 
 head, the Greek is slow to recognise ' a bliss 
 that leans not to mankind.' ' Presumptuous ' 
 is exactly what he would call it, for he did 
 think of Nature, or of parts of Nature, as 
 higher than man : the stars, for instance, are 
 of finer and more subtle substance, and it 
 belongs to the god Posidon, not to man, to be 
 on familiar terms with the sea. In a moment 
 of oppression or despair the Greek might 
 appeal to Earth and Sun as visible and present 
 divine powers, but he did not readily turn his 
 thoughts to Nature, or deliberately seek to 
 know her in her solitude. 
 
 ' To sit on rocks, to muse o'er flood and fell, 
 To slowly trace the forest's shady scene, 
 Where things that own not man's dominion dwell, 
 And mortal foot hath ne'er or rarely been' — 
 
 this was a thing which he did not spontaneously 
 do, and which in his ordinary moods had little 
 attraction for him. The interests of human 
 society, the active life of a civic community,
 
 THE FEELING FOR NATURE 
 
 claimed all his attention. In the Phaedrus, 
 though the beauty of the country near Athens, 
 by the banks of the Ilissus, is very vividly 
 described, Socrates is represented as disclaim- 
 ing any interest in it. ' Trees and country 
 places have nothing to tell me,' ovhkv /xe eOeXet 
 SiSdaKeiv, ' men in the city have.' Imbued with 
 this spirit, the Greek did not demand from 
 Art any very careful delineation of inanimate 
 Nature. Landscape-painting was practised in 
 Graeco-Roman times, but for the earlier period 
 the principle seems to have been that which 
 Plato lays down in the Critias — that a slight 
 sketch (oTKLaypacpLa aa-acp}']!?, a mere adumbration) 
 would suffice for the background, while the 
 human figures must be delineated with accuracy 
 and care — everybody is an acute critic in 
 regard to t/iem. Sculpture was the characteristic 
 art of the older period, and in a relief the 
 background is, as a rule, only faintly indicated. 
 Before we apply our tests in detail and 
 inquire where this or that vein of feeling can 
 be traced, it may be well to ask, what exactly 
 do we find in Homer ? — for the Homeric poems 
 stand at the portal of classical poetry, and all 
 later poets owe much to them. Ruskin cites
 
 lo LECTURES ON CLASSICAL SUBJECTS 
 
 from Homer an example of his third type of 
 vision. Is he reading into the words (pvcrl^oo? 
 ala a deeper meaning than they had for the 
 poet himself? Would it be true to say that 
 the Ji7'st type of vision, that of the plain man 
 who sees a primrose as it is, is the prevailing 
 one in the Homeric poems ? Or if we said so, 
 should we be going equally far astray in the 
 opposite direction ? Certainly there is little or 
 no reflection and sentiment in Homer ; the poet 
 does not analyse his own feelings or pause to 
 muse over them. But consider the pictures of 
 Nature which he has given us, their range and 
 vividness and beauty ! Hardly any important 
 aspect of Nature, animate or inanimate, is 
 unrepresented in the similes of Homer. Thunder 
 and breaking waves, a snowstorm, a cloud 
 approaching over the sea, the roar of distant 
 torrents on the mountains — the wilder scenes 
 of Nature are depicted with the same exact- 
 ness and clearness of vision as the more 
 peaceful ones. The poet is clearly an observer 
 whose senses are sound and unsophisticated, 
 who has no fancies or prejudices to impede 
 his view. It would be extremely rash to say 
 that a poet who can describe Nature so
 
 THE FEELING FOR NATURE n 
 
 efifectively has no feeling for the beauty of 
 Nature ; it is indeed incredible, and in some 
 indirect ways it can be disproved. Homer 
 does apply the adjective ' beautiful ' to natural 
 objects, and when he has described the cave 
 of Calypso, he adds, ' even a god who came 
 there might well gaze with delight upon the 
 place.' ^ What Homer lacks — and he is better 
 without it — is the sentimentalism which dwells 
 upon its own feelings and congratulates itself 
 upon their subtlety, a state of mind which 
 belongs to a much later age, and which some- 
 times results in unreality of feeling : the poet 
 is like the Duke in Browning's poem who 
 affected the ways of the past : 
 
 'AH that the old Dukes had been without knowing it. 
 This Duke would fain know that he was without being it.' 
 
 He wishes rather to know that he is an 
 admirer of nature than to be one. 
 
 There are two characteristics of the Homeric 
 view of Nature which we may note before 
 leaving it. One is that it ' leans to mankind ' ; 
 natural objects are seen as they affect man 
 and his wants. Thus the earth is ^e/^WjOo?, 
 
 ^ KOi d.&a.va.TO% irep ^ireXduv 
 driTjcraiTO Iduiv Kal Tep(p0elT] (ppealv xiaiv. — OJ. v. 73.
 
 12 LECTURES ON CLASSICAL SUBJECTS 
 
 the giver of corn ; the sun, (paecrifx^poTo?, a 
 source of Hght for men. Secondly, both in 
 his similes and in his narrative, the poet gives 
 us rather the broad and permanent features of 
 natural objects than their transitory appear- 
 ances : he does not aim at minute and 
 momentary effects. At times there even arises 
 some incongruity in this way, as Alexandrian 
 commentators pointed out. The stars shine 
 ' conspicuous ' (apLTrpeirea) about the bright 
 moon ; but it is in moonlight that the stars 
 have least apparent brightness. More minute 
 observation seems to be attempted in a later 
 time by the lyric poets, as when Sappho speaks 
 of the stars as hiding their brightness around 
 the moon. But there is a great deal of minute 
 observation in Homer too. The Homeric poet, 
 it may be noted, rarely attributes any kind of 
 feeling to inanimate Nature ; one feels it to 
 be very exceptional when the sea is spoken of 
 as ' foreboding ' or feeling the approach of 
 stormy winds. ^ 
 
 Let us now ask some of the questions 
 which our preliminary survey suggested. 
 Where is Nature thought of as sympathising 
 
 ■* offabjJjevov Xiyiwv avi^j-wv \aiip7tpa, K^Xevda. — //. xiv. 17.
 
 THE FEELING FOR NATURE 13 
 
 with man ? Under what circumstances does 
 man appeal to Nature for sympathy ? What 
 scenes in Nature have the greatest charm for 
 the ancient poet ? Is there anything analo- 
 gous to Wordsworth's view of Nature ? 
 
 Some of the most remarkable passages in 
 
 which Nature is endowed with feeling have 
 
 to be set aside if we define our inquiry very 
 
 strictly. Nature is not sympathising with 
 
 man, but with some god or half-divine being. 
 
 The sea lashes the shore of the Troad, where 
 
 the Greeks are encamped, at a crisis in the 
 
 battle ; it is when Posidon, the lord of the 
 
 waters, takes the field. The earth puts forth 
 
 fresh flowers for lovers ; it is the wedlock of 
 
 Zeus and Hera. So, in a later poet, Theognis, 
 
 it is said that ' the primeval earth smiled and 
 
 the deep waters of the sea grew glad.'^ It is 
 
 at the moment when the god Apollo is born 
 
 in Delos. A little later still we have in the 
 
 Prometheus of Aeschylus both an appeal to 
 
 Nature and a response : the appeal near the 
 
 beginning of the play, where Prometheus calls 
 
 upon the sky and switt-winged winds to witness 
 
 yfldrjaev Si /3a^i)s ttovtos dXos TroXirjs. — Theog. 9- 10.
 
 14 LECTURES ON CLASSICAL SUBJECTS 
 
 his sufferings,^ upon the ' myriad laughter of 
 the ocean waves,' the springs and the all-seeing 
 sun : the response described in a choric passage 
 further on, where it is said that the wave of 
 the sea pities him as it falls and the depths 
 make lament.^ Here again we must remember, 
 what a modern reader very readily forgets, 
 that Prometheus is a god, a Titan and an 
 elemental power of Nature himself Is the 
 search then to be fruitless ? Not altogether : 
 there are stories in the Greek poets in which 
 Nature is affected by the fortunes of men. 
 Notably, there is the tale of Atreus and 
 Thyestes, where the sun alters his course to 
 avoid the spectacle of human suffering, ^va-Tvyia 
 ^poreup, moved by the calamities of men.^ 
 But it must be admitted that such incidents 
 or ideas are rare in the poetry of the 
 Athenian age. They are more easily dis- 
 covered in the poetry of Alexandria and 
 
 1 S) STos aldrip, K.r.X.—From. 88 f. 
 
 ^ j3oa 5^ TTovTioi KXvdojv 
 
 av/MwiTvoiy, ariveL ^v66s. — Prom. 447. 
 
 *This phrase is used by Euripides in a lyric passage, where 
 
 (of all places !) he takes occasion to express a sceptical doubt 
 
 about the story : 
 
 X^erai, tov 5^ iriariv 
 
 fffJUKpav Trap' ^^^017' ^x^'- — Electra, 737.
 
 THE FEELING FOR NATURE 15 
 
 Rome. Here we have the graceful or ventur- 
 ous fancy of learned poets, rather than serious 
 feeling or belief. Nature bewails Daphnis, in 
 Theocritus ; the jackals and wolves, and the 
 lion in his thicket. So, too, in Virgil the 
 sufferings of Gallus call forth pity from laurels 
 and tamarisks, from the pine-clad heights of 
 Maenalus and the cliffs of icy Lycaeus : 
 
 ' Ilium etiam lauri, etiam flevere myricae, 
 pinifer ilium etiam sola sub rupe iacentem 
 Maenalus et gelidi fleverunt saxa Lycaei.' 
 
 Daphnis, we may again be reminded, was a 
 divine being and not a man : the original, 
 popular idea was not that of sympathy with 
 human distress. But in the Eclogues of Virgil 
 the idea of a sympathising Nature is really 
 frequent and not to be explained away. In 
 Virgil we can find a precedent even for some 
 of the most subtle and romantic forms which 
 the idea has assumed in modern poets ; for 
 instance, for the feelings attributed to flowers 
 in Tennyson's Maud : ' Phyllidis adventu nostrae 
 nemus omne virebit' 
 
 Where, and under what conditions, is an 
 appeal addressed to Nature for sympathy ? 
 This was our second question. Generally, the
 
 i6 LECTURES ON CLASSICAL SUBJECTS 
 
 answer will be, when no other resource is 
 left, when human help and companionship are 
 beyond the reach of the sufferer. Thus Philoc- 
 tetes, betrayed and abandoned by his fellow- 
 men, recounts his woes to the havens and 
 capes, the wild beasts and the beetling cliffs 
 of Lemnos : ' for I know no other to whom 
 I can tell them.' ^ And similarly Ajax, in his 
 moral isolation and despair, entreats the Sun 
 to carry tidings of his death to Salamis, and 
 bids farewell to the streams and plains of 
 Troy. Antigone appeals to the springs of 
 Dirce and the holy soil of Thebes. Electra, 
 isolated under the hostile roof of her mother 
 and Aegisthus, addresses her complaints to the 
 Light and the Air of Heaven. It is in cir- 
 cumstances like these that Natural Powers are 
 appealed to, in the older poetry of Greece. 
 In the more artificial and sentimental poetry 
 of Graeco-Roman times, the personification of 
 natural objects is more facile and frequent. 
 
 What, we next proposed to ask, are the 
 scenes in Nature which had the greatest 
 attraction for the ancients ? The landscape 
 which a Greek would choose for his environ- 
 
 ^01' 7dp dWov old' &T10 \iyoj. — Philoct. 938.
 
 THE FEELING FOR NATURE 17 
 
 ment was a tranquil one, a cultivated spot 
 or a spot capable of cultivation, a quiet com- 
 bination of meadow, wood, and stream, of 
 pleasing features limited and definitely grouped : 
 not vast solitudes or rugged heights. For 
 rivers, as irrigating and fertilising powers, there 
 is a friendly feeling in ancient poetry. No 
 doubt they are also thought of as turbulent 
 and destructive : Homeric similes include the 
 ravages of a swollen river, and the common 
 representation of a river as ' tauriformis ' ^ seems 
 to imply the same idea of anger and strength. 
 But it is noticeable that rivers alone, among 
 objects of Nature, receive frequently the 
 epithets ' beautiful ' or ' lovely,' koXu. peeOpa, 
 epareiva peeOpa} Such adjectives may be 
 applied to a grove or a meadow or a cave 
 {avTpov eiry'ipaTov) : they are also applied not 
 unfrequently to the work of men's hands, to 
 a harbour or a town. But they are very 
 rarely bestowed upon mountains. Only one 
 passage is known to me, in Greek Literature, 
 
 ^ 6 fM^U ijv TTOTafXOU ffdivo^ V\plK^pU) T€Tpa6pOV 
 
 (pdcr/xa ravpov — (Achelous). — SoPH. Track. 508. 
 '^Compare the description of the waters of Cephisus in 
 Sophocles' Ode upon Colonus, where there is a touch of 
 personification in av-wvoi. Kprjvai. 
 
 B
 
 i8 LECTURES ON CLASSICAL SUBJECTS 
 
 where mountains are explicitly thought of as 
 capable of possessing beauty. It is in the 
 Critias of Plato, where it is said that the 
 mountains encircling Atlantis surpassed in 
 number and size and beauty all those that 
 now exist.^ Archilochus, the early ' iambic ' 
 poet, describing the rugged and forest-clad 
 island of Thasos, denies that it is beautiful : 
 * it stands in the sea like an ass's back, 
 crowned with savage wood ! it is no beautiful 
 or lovely place such as the land about the 
 streams of Siris.' We may observe that, 
 while denying its beauty, the poet describes 
 the island in vivid and forcible terms, vkri'i 
 aypla? eTrtcrre^r/? ; and, generally, that the 
 epithets applied to mountains by Greek poets 
 would show, if they were collected, a wonderful 
 appreciation of the various features of moun- 
 tain scenery. ' Many-fountained Ida ' ' clad in 
 waving woods ' (^ecvoa-lcbvWov), ' full of wooded 
 glens' (iroXviTTv-^^ou vXtjea-G-t]?), 'snow-clad,' 
 ' touched by the sun's first ray ' (jrpuiTo^oXov 
 aXiw). These epithets and others, along with 
 many descriptive passages in Homer, Aeschylus, 
 and Pindar, and with a remarkable passage 
 
 ^ Critas, Ii8, B.
 
 THE FEELING FOR NATURE 19 
 
 in Aristophanes, where the movement of the 
 advancing ' Clouds ' is described, serve to show 
 that what the Greeks lacked was not sensi- 
 bility for the beautiful aspects of mountains, 
 but merely the abstract thought or reflection 
 that mountains are beautiful. It remains true, 
 however, that mountains had less attraction 
 for them than other scenes of Nature had, and 
 less than they have for the modern mind. 
 
 There were two ways in which mountains 
 did exercise a spell over the Greek. One 
 of these was patriotism. The mountains of his 
 home were always welcome to his eyes. Thus 
 the wily Odysseus, disguised as a Cretan, lends 
 plausibility to his narrative by speaking in an 
 affectionate tone of ' the snowy mountains of 
 Crete ' : so again, on the journey to Brun- 
 disium, the mountains of his native Apulia 
 catch the eye of Horace : 
 
 ' Incipit ex illo montes Apulia notos 
 ostentare mihi '; 
 
 and the Italian provincial gladly returns 
 
 'Ad patrios montes et ad incunabula nostra.' 
 
 The second occasion on which mountains had 
 a fascination for the Greek was in the ecstatic
 
 20 LECTURES ON CLASSICAL SUBJECTS 
 
 worship of Dionysus, a kind of revolt or 
 reaction against the order and regularity of 
 civilised city-life : the irkpa^ is forgotten, and 
 the cxTreipov has its revenge : the Bacchants 
 are swept away by the vast forces of Nature, 
 they are identified with her, endowed with 
 more than human powers ; the snows of 
 Cithaeron or Rhodope are powerless to harm 
 them, and they can rend lions limb from limb. 
 The wildest fastnesses of the hills are the 
 appropriate scene for their revels : ' a ravine 
 girt with cliffs, dripping with torrents under 
 the dark shade of pines.' ^ In their frenzied 
 dance the whole of nature joins, moon and 
 stars take their part.^ It is as the devotee of 
 a similar ecstatic cult that Catullus' Attis seeks 
 the recesses of the Phrygian forests, the haunt 
 of hind and boar : 
 
 ' Ubi cerva silvicultrix, ubi aper nemorivagus,' 
 leaving behind him all that the Greek most 
 valued in his sane and normal life : 
 
 ' Genitoribus abero, 
 abero foro palaestra stadio et gymnasiis.' 
 
 ^ dyKos dfM(f)lKpr]/xvov, vBacri Sid^poxov, 
 
 ireijKaKn crvcrKidi'ov. — EuR. Bacch. 105 1. 
 
 ^ 5re Kol Atos dcrrepcoTrds | dvex^P^vaev aidrjp, 
 Xop€V€L 5e creXdva. — EUR. /on. 1078. 
 
 I
 
 THE FEELING FOR NATURE 21 
 
 Apart from such exceptional aberrations, and 
 apart from the work of one or two exceptional 
 poets like Aeschylus and Pindar, it must be 
 allowed that the ancient view of Nature was 
 somewhat prosaic and practical, showing a 
 decided preference for fertile, habitable, and 
 accessible country. We have seen that the 
 Greek could describe the beauty of Nature in 
 vivid and exact terms. That he had a sense 
 for the ' magic of Nature ' it would be more 
 difficult to show. Matthew Arnold denies it to 
 him and makes this gift a specially Celtic one. 
 But it is not wholly absent from Greek poetry. 
 Some such feeling found expression in the 
 adjective XaQeo<i, which seems to have meant 
 not divine in quality, like 0«o?, or the pro- 
 perty of a particular god, but ' haunted,' full 
 of the presence of divine spirits.^ Again, there 
 was at least one natural object which the 
 Greeks invested with some kind of ' magic,' or 
 mystery : I mean a cave. We can feel this, 
 1 think, in the single Homeric epithet mpoei^k : 
 more clearly in the description of the cave in 
 
 1 Virgil succeeds in giving some such meaning to the Latin 
 adjective ' divinus ' in the line : 
 
 'Divinosque lacus et Averna sonantia silvis.' — Aen. ni. 442.
 
 22 LECTURES ON CLASSICAL SUBJECTS 
 
 Ithaca, in Od. xiii. : and perhaps still more un- 
 mistakably in the few words in which Aeschylus 
 depicts the cave at Delphi, the hollow rock 
 beloved of birds : 
 
 KcopvKts Tver pa 
 KOiky], (fiLXopvLS, SaifxovoiV dvacrTpo(f)Ti],^ 
 
 where the last phrase is virtually equivalent 
 to ^aOeog, an adjective which Euripides applies 
 to the same scene : 
 
 ^dOcd t' dvrpa SpaKOUTO^ ov- 
 petat re CTKOTriai, df.dv.'^ 
 
 Still harder would it be to trace in Greek 
 Literature anything answering to Wordsworth's 
 idea of Nature as a power which can refine and 
 tranquillise the human spirit or dispense strength 
 and solace to her votaries. The Greeks and 
 Romans were quite familiar with the thought of 
 Nature as a single Power or Being, more or less 
 personified. But they do not often regard her 
 as obviously beneficent, or as beneficent in this 
 particular way. As early as the 5 th century B.C., 
 there was much discussion of the contrast between 
 Nature and Artificiality or Convention {^vari<; and 
 liVvOyK}]) : philosophical writings and fragments 
 
 ^ Euvienides, 22. ^ Phoenissae, 232.
 
 THE FEELING FOR NATURE 23 
 
 of the Old Comedy show that there was talk of a 
 primitive or golden age of Nature in the remote 
 past. But even if Nature had been thought of as 
 ruling this age, that would still be something 
 different from Wordsworth's notion of the bene- 
 ficence of Nature as she is, here and now. And in 
 fact the sovereignty of the golden age was given 
 to other powers, to Justice (At/c*/ or Astraea) or to 
 Kronos. The most that we can say about the 
 ancient world is that Nature, in fact, did for some 
 of the more thoughtful of the Romans what she did 
 for Wordsworth, though they did not put it into 
 words or express it in the same way. Here and 
 there, in writings of the imperial age, there are 
 striking coincidences wnth modern language. In 
 a Lucianic dialogue,^ for example, we hear of the 
 Trapa/uLvdla, comfort or solace which is derived 
 from the sight of the country. Again, in the 
 ' Orphic ' hymn to Nature, a composition of dis- 
 putable but probably rather late date, there 
 are phrases which have a singularly modern if 
 not specially Wordsworthian ring. Nature is 
 addressed in the words, Koivtj fxev Travrecrcrcv, 
 oLKoivwvtjTe Se /uLouvrj (one of the most remarkable 
 of a long series of similar contrasts) : she 
 
 ^ Charidemos, rj irepl KaWovs.
 
 24 LECTURES ON CLASSICAL SUBJECTS 
 
 is a power with whom all have dealings, 
 though none may clasp her hand or read her 
 secret. 
 
 The transition to Rome suggests that we 
 should at the outset attempt to summarise 
 historically the progress which Greek Literature 
 had made in the appreciation of Nature. 
 Simple and unreflecting in Homer, but vivid 
 and exact, the sense for natural beauty had 
 become deeper and more subtle in the lyric 
 poets : in the Attic drama it had found com- 
 paratively little scope, since the interest centred 
 in human action, but it was not absent, and 
 the language of the dramatists presents a 
 remarkable contrast to that of Homer. Meta- 
 phor has taken the place of simile, that is, 
 analogies or resemblances between human life 
 and Nature are much more familiar and suggest 
 themselves much more readily. The poet no 
 longer draws a picture deliberately and then 
 calls attention to a point of resemblance : he 
 speaks boldly of the storm of battle, the fruit of 
 evil deeds, the tide of calamity. In his feeling 
 for Nature, as in many other respects, Euripides 
 was an innovator and a leader. He brought 
 into Greek Literature a new vein of romance
 
 THE FEELING FOR NATURE 25 
 
 and sentiment, a more modern quality of thought. 
 Man is now in some degree aware of his sever- 
 ance from Nature, he consciously strives to 
 bridge the gulf, to resume communion with 
 her. Euripides seems to have detached him- 
 self from the busy politics of Athens. If tradi- 
 tion may be trusted, he lived alone in a cave 
 on Salamis, and he found a grave appropriately 
 enough in the forest glades of Pieria.^ He may 
 perhaps be regarded as the first to court the 
 society of Nature in her solitudes. Certainly 
 he was a poet who could describe Nature with 
 great charm and felicity : he touches her wilder 
 aspects in the Bacchae, and in a passage from 
 the lost Phaethon he has caught the very breath 
 and hue of sunrise. After Euripides, the chief 
 products of Greece in imaginative literature were 
 Attic Comedy and Alexandrian Idyll, Elegy, and 
 Epigram. In the fragments of the former there 
 are utterances about the country — ay^o?, ayfjoi — 
 which suggest that it may have contained scenes 
 or passages which, like one or two known to us 
 in Aristophanes, revealed an acute sense for the 
 charm of rustic life in Attica. But it dealt 
 
 ^ X^-^P^ /xeXa/iTreTciXots, Ei'pt7r/5r;, cf yva.\ot.(Ti.v 
 Ilteptas Tbv det vvKTh% ^x^" da\<xfxov. — Anthol.
 
 26 LECTURES ON CLASSICAL SUBJECTS 
 
 mainly with city-life. In Alexandrian poetry 
 Nature bulked more largely. If there is 
 nothing very profound, there is much that is 
 very modern in tone ; graceful or melancholy 
 fancies about Nature, attempts to interpret her 
 moods or to use them as symbols for the moods 
 of man. There is also that reaction against 
 city-life which we find again at Rome and in 
 modern times, the tendency to turn to the 
 country for relief and recreation. 
 
 All this literature of Greece the Romans had 
 before them when they first attempted imagin- 
 ative writing. But they had much more than 
 this to shape and direct their feeling for Nature 
 and natural scenes. They were a people with 
 a strong national life of its own, and in their 
 ideals and traditions agriculture had an impor- 
 tant place. They had a mythology very 
 different from that of Greece, one in which 
 rustic deities were more numerous and power- 
 ful, whether beneficent like Faunus and Pales, 
 or dark and terrible like Diana Nemorensis, 
 with her human sacrifices in the heart of the 
 forest. Roman religion, again, included a belief 
 in portents or prodigies, changes in Nature 
 which had a significance for men. In the poets
 
 THE FEELING FOR NATURE 27 
 
 this idea assumes forms which recall the legend 
 
 of Atreus and Thyestes : 
 
 ' Ille etiam exstincto miseratus Caesare Romam, 
 cum caput obscura nitidum ferrugine texit.' 
 
 But it would be a mistake to suppose that in its 
 beginnings it was a highly imaginative or subtle 
 belief In some of its forms it became a mere 
 piece of semi-political machinery. But in any 
 case it is a striking feature of Roman thought, an 
 idea not, it is true, unknown to Greece, but much 
 less conspicuous there. 
 
 With these ancient feelings and associations to 
 influence them, with the busy and exacting life of 
 a great city to repel them towards the country, 
 and with a large body of humane and philosophic 
 thought, inherited from Greece, to enlarge and 
 clarify their mental vision, the best of the Romans 
 naturally arrived at a mental attitude which has 
 more affinity with the thought of modern times. 
 Cicero and Virgil are nearer to us, more easily 
 realised as personalities than the great Greeks. 
 They have not the originality, the inspiring 
 insight, the vigour and artistic sense of the Greek 
 masters. But their mental furniture is more like 
 ours ; we feel that we could live with them and 
 enjoy their society, without surprises and sudden
 
 28 LECTURES ON CLASSICAL SUBJECTS 
 
 divergences. It is conspicuously so in regard to 
 their view of country life. The poetry of Nature 
 and the country which we find in Virgil, Horace, 
 and Tibullus appeals to the modern mind almost 
 more than anything else in the imaginative litera- 
 ture of Rome. Lucretius stands apart : he is an 
 isolated genius, not a representative of his country- 
 men, and the poetic interest is mingled with the 
 scientific in his work. He preceded Virgil and 
 helped Virgil in many ways : in some ways he 
 transcends him, he is more profoundly impressed 
 by the larger aspects of Nature, the vastness of 
 the universe, the complexity of natural processes, 
 the ceaseless change and movement in the world's 
 life. But Virgil is more of a pure poet, and the 
 poetic elements which we set out to look for are 
 found in him in very definite and beautiful forms. 
 Pictorial description of Nature, the exact 
 delineation of her beauties, attains in Virgil to 
 a hieh deg-ree of excellence. The well-known 
 description of a rainstorm in autumn {Georg. i. 
 322 f.) is a good example of his manner: the 
 picture includes vivid touches which the poet has 
 evidently observed for himself: 
 
 'Cava flumina crescunt 
 cum sonitu fervetque fretis spirantibus aequor.'
 
 THE FEELING FOR NATURE 29 
 
 Some of the subtleties of Virgilian language, what 
 seem at first sight inversions of natural expression, 
 are perhaps accounted for by real subtlety of 
 observation. A spectator on the shore sees ' the 
 sea glide towards him with its ships ' 
 
 'Adlabi classibus aequor." 
 
 When several objects are moving in the same 
 direction over a smooth or homogeneous surface, 
 the effect to the eye is that the whole is moving, 
 surface and objects together. Was this the effect 
 which Virgil meant to depict ? Again, when the 
 ships of Aeneas are making their way up the 
 Tiber, it is said : 
 
 'Viridesque secant placido aequore silvas.' 
 
 Does this mean that the prow cleaves the reflec- 
 tion of the foliage in the water ? - Commentators 
 dispute the interpretation as too subtle, but they 
 often challenge it on rather inadequate grounds. 
 The question involved is the large one of Virgil's 
 method in observing and delineating Nature. 
 
 ^ Aen, X. 269. 
 
 ^ Ausonius describes the reflection of trees in the waters of the 
 
 Moselle {Idyl. x. 189) : 
 
 ' Glaucus opaco 
 
 respondet colli fluvius, frondere videntur 
 
 fluniinei latices et palmite consitus amnis.'
 
 30 LECTURES ON CLASSICAL SUBJECTS 
 
 With his descriptive power, Virgil combines 
 a keen sense for the historical associations of 
 scenery, for the memories of the past that cling 
 about a wood or cliff or stream, and in this way he 
 did for Italian scenery something like what Sir 
 Walter Scott did for that of our island. This 
 patriotic and historical feeling appears strongly in 
 the splendid description of Italy in the second 
 Georgic : it appears also in greater detail in the 
 seventh book of the Aenad, in the catalogue of 
 Turnus' Italian allies, where many localities in 
 Italy are described with great power and beauty 
 in musical verse. Virgil has also at times some- 
 thing of the ' magic of Nature,' for he was sensi- 
 tive to suggestions of the spiritual or supernatural. 
 His use of the adjective ' divinus ' has already 
 been quoted. In a passage of the eighth book, he 
 attaches this sense of mystery and awe to the 
 Capitoline Hill, the future site of Rome : 
 
 ' Hoc nemus, hunc, inquit, frondoso vertice collem, 
 quis deus, incertum est, habitat deus.^ 
 
 The place is ^dOeo?, SaijuLouoov avaa-rpocpij. 
 
 An instance of the ' pathetic fallacy ' has been 
 cited from the Eclogues. That the idea was no 
 mere graceful fancy, derived from Theocritus, but 
 
 ^ Aen. viii. 351.
 
 THE FEELING FOR NATURE 31 
 
 one which appealed to Virgil's spirit and sug- 
 gested itself naturally to him, seems to be shown 
 by the fact of its recurrence in his epic, in a more 
 serious context. When an Italian warrior departs 
 for the field of battle, never to return, he is 
 bewept by the wood and river and lake of his 
 native place: 
 
 'Te nemus Anguitiae, vitrea te Fucinus unda, 
 te liquid! flevere lacus.'^ 
 
 Finally, Virgil has something of Wordsworth's 
 attitude towards Nature, he is strongly attracted 
 by the country, and he is prepared to find rest 
 and satisfaction amid the hills and streams. He 
 does not talk about ' Natura ' : the mode of ex- 
 pression is still partly mythological : 
 
 ' Fortunatus et ille, deos qui novit agrestes 
 Panaque Silvanumque senem Nymphasque sorores';^ 
 
 but the enthusiasm is the same in kind as that of 
 the modern poet : 
 
 ' O qui me gelidis in vallibus Haemi 
 sistat et ingenti ramorum protegat umbra!' 
 
 Much might be said about the treatment of 
 Nature in other Roman poets, in Catullus, in 
 Horace, in the post-Augustans, among whom 
 
 1 Aen. vii. 759. "^ Georg. ii. 493.
 
 32 LECTURES ON CLASSICAL SUBJECTS 
 
 Statius is conspicuous for a gift of minute and 
 
 exact observation not unlike that possessed by 
 
 Virgil and Tennyson. Statius also gives us in 
 
 the Silvae full and appreciative pictures of some 
 
 of the beautiful country-seats of his friends. But 
 
 vv^e are concerned rather with general principles 
 
 than with details, and it is sufficient to show that 
 
 the Romans had a very real and widespread taste 
 
 for the beauties of Nature, and a feeling for the 
 
 country which was almost different in kind from 
 
 that of the Greeks. 
 
 ' Urbis amatorem Fuscum salvere iubemus 
 ruris amatores — ' 
 
 Is it easy to translate this into Attic Greek ? 
 Does any phrase like aypcop epacrr/jg really con- 
 vey a similar meaning ? aypoiKog ? acrriKo? ? The 
 Roman words seem to have a greater fulness of 
 signification. The new sentiment has differenti- 
 ated the Latin word from its literal Greek equiva- 
 lent, and hence, we may infer, the poets did not 
 stand alone in their feeling for the country : the 
 idea was diffused through Roman society, familiar 
 to all. If this were a doubtful inference, we could 
 confirm it by turning from the poets to the 
 prose-writers, among whom Pliny the Younger 
 would perhaps appeal to us most as the repre-
 
 THE FEELING FOR NATURE 33 
 
 sentative of an ardent and enlightened love of 
 Nature. To him Nature is inspiring : his natural 
 surroundings at his country seat stimulate his 
 fancy and direct his pen. ' O mare, O litus, 
 verum secretumque fxava-eiov, quam multa inveni- 
 tis, quam multa dictatis ! ' Seneca, too, has an 
 enthusiasm for Nature, and we find him pro- 
 posing to visit the wild districts of Bruttium and 
 Lucania by way of change and relief. There may 
 have been a little affectation in some utterances 
 like these ; we may be inclined to say that the 
 Roman had no very sensitive or penetrating imagi- 
 nation, that what attracted him was often a very 
 practical satisfaction, freedom from worry, and 
 fresh air : but there is a great deal of evidence to 
 show that his feeling for Nature was, on the 
 whole, genuine enough, and not really unlike 
 our own. He was a traveller, a tourist, and an 
 admirer of scenery, to a far greater extent than 
 the Greek had been, and it is only within the 
 last century that he has been in these respects 
 surpassed. 
 
 What, we may ask in conclusion, is the signi- 
 ficance of the progress which we have been 
 tracing ? We have endeavoured, in bare and 
 
 scanty outline, to follow some of the changes of 
 
 c
 
 34 LECTURES ON CLASSICAL SUBJECTS 
 
 sentiment which have appeared in Greece, Rome, 
 and modern Europe. What is the meaning of it 
 all ? Is it only that poets, with the example of 
 their predecessors to help them, have devised 
 more and more ingenious ways of amusing and 
 entertaining their readers ? Has anything of 
 value been arrived at, or are we to dismiss many 
 of the ideas as merely untrue and illusory — 
 the belief in Faunus and Silvanus, for instance, 
 or the ' Pathetic Fallacy ' ? It would be a very 
 barren and discouraging theory of Man and 
 Nature that could find in the series nothing but 
 an advance in weaving fanciful conceits, and it 
 would also be a view very derogatory to the poet, 
 and not in the least borne out by a true history 
 of civilisation. The more serious theory is the 
 truer one. Man has been at all times vaguely 
 and instinctively aware that the Nature which 
 confronts him or surrounds him is a power not 
 really alien or hostile : he may never know her 
 face to face, she may be ultimately aKoivooi'tjTo?, 
 in the phrase of the Orphic hymn : but the 
 suspicion grows that if anything necessarily 
 remained unknown it would not be worth know- 
 ing : in her works and laws she is sufficiently 
 revealed. Each age wrests something of her
 
 THE FEELING FOR NATURE 35 
 
 secret from her, each age requires a new inter- 
 pretation of man's relation to her : the man of 
 science deciphers her mechanism and finds a 
 formula for it : the interpretation must be given 
 by the philosopher or the poet.
 
 II. 
 
 THE BELIEFS OF THE GREEKS AND 
 ROMANS CONCERNING A LIFE 
 AFTER DEATH.^ 
 
 dW o,Tt Tou ^Tjv (f)[\Tepov aXKo 
 (tk6tos dyUTTtcrxw;' Kpiiirrei. vecpiXais' 
 dvaipures St] (paLvo/xed' 6vt€S 
 rods' 6,TL TovTO (TTlX^ei Kara yrjv, 
 8l' a.ireLpo(JVV7]v SXKov ^iotov 
 Koi'K dirbSei^LV tQv virb yaias, 
 fjLvdoLS 5' dtXXws (pepo/xeaOa. 
 
 Euripides, Hippolytus, 191- 197. 
 
 ' Have we any means of discovering/ it may 
 be asked, ' what the ancients really thought and 
 felt on a subject like this ? We have hints 
 and isolated utterances of poets, and the specu- 
 lations of particular philosophers. But what 
 
 ^ A Lecture intended as an ' Introduction to the Study of Aeneid 
 VI.' I am indebted for some ideas and materials to the follow- 
 ing books, among others : Rohde's Psyche ; an Essay in Lehrs' 
 Populdre Aufsdtze aus don Alterthzi7n ; Coulanges, La Citi 
 Antique ; Preller's Romische Mythologie.
 
 THE BELIEF IN A LIFE AFTER DEATH 37 
 
 did the people really believe, what did the 
 average Greek or Roman hold to be true ? 
 How strong and how widely diffused was the 
 belief in a future life ? ' 
 
 Evidence is not altogether lacking. It is 
 of various kinds. A great many sepulchral in- 
 scriptions, and some sepulchral reliefs, are pre- 
 served. Customs and rites are known : for 
 example, the custom of bringing offerings of 
 food and drink to the tomb. Such rites imply 
 a belief: not necessarily a strong one in all who 
 practise them, but a belief which had at some 
 time been strong and general. Again, popular 
 language is preserved for us incidentally by 
 poets or other writers. In a fragment of Aristo- 
 phanes ^ a speaker is contending that revelry 
 and joy await the dead ; and he appeals to the 
 common phrase, 'The Blessed One:' o jxaKaplTr]<s^ . 
 r] jxaKaplri^i^ he or she who is now in bliss, 
 meant the departed, like ' der Selige ' in German.^ 
 The Latin word ' Manes ' has been derived from 
 an adjective ' manus,' pure, bright or good, 
 
 ^ Tay/j^'tcrTai, Yx, 488 (Ed. Kock), 1. 10 : Trds 7a/) \iyu tls ' 6 
 fiaKaplTTjs otxerai.' 
 
 ^ Rohde thinks that this expression belonged specially to 
 Attica. But it occurs in Theocritus (Tpo<pbs a fiaKap'iTts^ Idyl. 
 ii. 70).
 
 38 LECTURES ON CLASSICAL SUBJECTS 
 
 and its Greek equivalent in inscriptions is "xpn^- 
 Toi. Such pieces of evidence, however — words, 
 customs, or current ideas — must not be over- 
 estimated ; and for a general view it is perhaps 
 safer to go to the poets and men of letters. 
 Greek poetry in many of its forms, and, in a 
 lesser degree, Roman poetry, appealed to the 
 people more directly than most modern poetry 
 does ; it was full of national sentiment, and it 
 reflected popular ideas, though no doubt in a 
 higher and more subtle form. The general 
 spirit and mood of the poets may fairly be 
 taken as representative. Now that spirit is on 
 the whole one of contentment with life on 
 earth. In moments of trouble the Greek some- 
 times wishes that he had never been born ; ^ 
 but as a rule he finds the present life full of 
 activity and interest, and thinks but little of a 
 life to come. Plato's picture of the old age of 
 Cephalus in the Republic is a very natural one, 
 and impresses us with its truth. Cephalus says 
 that when a man draws near to the end of his 
 days he begins to be anxious and troubled 
 
 ^ fjLT] (pvvai rbp diravra viKg. \6yov k. t. X. (SoPH. Oed. Col. 1225). 
 The same sentiment had previously been expressed by Theognis, 
 425 f.
 
 THE BELIEF IN A LIFE AFTER DEATH 39 
 
 about things of which he never thought before ; ^ 
 he is tormented by a doubt whether there may 
 not be some truth after all in the tales or fxvQoi 
 told about Hades. Popular belief was probably 
 very vague and uncertain. People are not at one, 
 Aristotle says, a/ucpiSo^ova-i, regarding the survival 
 of the soul. And popular belief, such as it was, 
 was alloyed with curious superstitions : there was, 
 for instance, the idea mentioned by Plato, that 
 if a man died while a gale of wind was blowing, 
 his soul ran a risk of being blown away and 
 dispersed altogether ! 
 
 When Virgil came to compose his sixth 
 Aeneid, there was ample material before him 
 in custom and tradition and in the poetry and 
 philosophy of preceding centuries. The idea of 
 the whole, the epic framework or outline, came 
 from Homer. But much had happened since 
 Homer's day. New ideas had been developed or 
 imported; and the Homeric poems, it is probable, 
 do not even present completely the beliefs that 
 then existed. The picture drawn by Homer - 
 
 ^ elaipx^TaL aiVa; 5^os /cat (ppovrh Trepl <hu ifxirpoadev ovk et'crjet 
 {Rep. i. p. 330, D.). 
 
 ^ I say ' Homer ' for the sake of brevity, without intending to 
 assert single authorship. It is less cumbrous than 'the author 
 or authors of the Homeric poems.'
 
 40 LECTURES ON CLASSICAL SUBJECTS 
 
 of the state of the dead is not a very 
 attractive or inspiring one. In the Iliad^ 
 when a hero falls, his soul passes under earth 
 ' like a wreath of vapour ' ; in the Odyssey^ 
 Odysseus finds the shades or spirits collected 
 in a gloomy region beyond the Ocean Stream. 
 Homer, as Plato insisted, makes death repulsive, 
 a thing likely to unnerve the combatant. It is 
 but a feeble and almost unconscious life that the 
 "^v^^ai possess ; and with the exception of the 
 privileged Tiresias, they have no knowledge of 
 what is happening on earth, and no power to 
 control events, to help their surviving kindred or 
 take vengeance on their foes. Of reward for 
 a good life led on earth, or punishment for a 
 bad one, there is scarcely a hint. The Powers 
 below punish the special offence of perjury, we 
 learn from one passage in the Iliad} But in 
 the realm which Odysseus sees there are no 
 regions set apart for the good and for the 
 wicked. Tityus, Sisyphus, and Tantalus, it is 
 true, suffer punishment ; but these are exceptional 
 offenders against the gods, punished in Hades 
 because their punishment must be unending, not 
 
 ^11. iii. 278. The verb is dual {rlvvaBov), meaning presumably 
 Pluto and Persephone.
 
 THE BELIEF IN A LIFE AFTER DEATH 41 
 
 ordinary wrong-doers.^ In another book of the 
 Odyssey, it is said that Menelaus will not die, 
 but will be transported ' to the Elysian plain 
 and the furthest ends of the earth ' : he is the 
 son-in-law of Zeus, and specially favoured by 
 the gods. The propitiation of the shade of 
 Patroclus by Achilles perhaps implies the power 
 of the dead to resent a slight and to injure the 
 living : ' Be not wroth with me, Patroclus, if you 
 hear in Hades that I have accepted a ransom for 
 Hector.' But these are exceptional and isolated 
 things. The prevailing Homeric view is that 
 the dead are powerless, and that they are neither 
 rewarded nor punished for the life they have 
 led on earth. When the body is consumed by 
 fire, the wraith or shade departs to the realm of 
 spirits to return no more.'^ 
 
 Apart from Homer, there are three forms or 
 phases of belief to be considered, all of which 
 are to some extent utilised by Virgil. First, 
 there is Hero-worship and the cult of the dead, 
 implying, at least in early times, the idea that 
 
 ^According to some critics, they are typical sufferers, and the 
 passage dates from the sixth century, when ' Orphic ' ideas were 
 in the air. It seems a safer view to suppose that they are not 
 typical. 
 
 "^ 11. xxiii. 75.
 
 42 LECTURES ON CLASSICAL SUBJECTS 
 
 the soul of the dead man resides in the tomb — 
 not in a distant Hades — to be there propitiated 
 with offerings in due season by his descendants. 
 Secondly, there were the Mysteries of Eleusis 
 and the beliefs connected with them, involving 
 the idea of a happy future for the initiated. 
 Thirdly, Orphic doctrines and Orphic rites 
 or TeXsTal, in which the notion of expiation 
 or atonement was conspicuous : sin and punish- 
 ment, purchasable indemnity, and the Pytha- 
 gorean transmigration of souls. Besides these 
 beliefs or institutions, philosophy exerted a 
 great influence, and the writings of Plato in 
 particular disseminated the idea that the soul 
 is ' immortal,' that is, not merely surviving at 
 death, but of divine nature, indestructible and 
 existing for ever. Cleombrotus of Ambracia 
 hurled himself from a lofty wall and perished, 
 not because he found the ills of life unbearable, 
 but because he had read the Phaedo of Plato ! 
 This is related in an epigram of Callimachus,i 
 and the truth of the story may be doubted. 
 Philosophy, further, exerted an influence on 
 both sides ; there were not only believers in 
 
 ^Sftoj' ov^iv IZwv da.v6.Tov KaKdv, dXXd HXdroivos 
 
 y rb -Kepi tpvxvs ypafifx' dvaXe^dfievos. — Call. £p. xxv.
 
 THE BELIEF IN A LIFE AFTER DEA TH 43 
 
 a future life, but sceptics also and earnest 
 opponents of the belief, like Lucretius. To 
 Lucretius the belief in a future life is an evil, 
 filling men's minds with baseless terror : that 
 he denounces it with such force and ardour 
 has been taken as an indication that it was 
 of considerable strength and widely prevalent. 
 
 I. Hero Worship and the Cult 
 OF THE Dead. 
 
 The payment of rites and offerings to the 
 shade of an ancestor or a great man of the 
 past is a conspicuous feature in Greek and 
 Roman life. The dead is a powerful spirit 
 who exacts reverence and resents neglect,^ who 
 can help or injure his descendants. ' Aid us 
 against Aegisthus,' is the appeal of Orestes, 
 ' for only thus will the due feasts be spread 
 for thee.' '^ The appeal is made at the tomb : 
 the dead are there, near the living, not distant, 
 like the gods in Olympus. In the Helena of 
 
 ^ KoX Te^veojy koX r6.piX0% ewp irpbs OeCov ovva/j-iv ^x^'- '''^^ 
 ddiKiovra rlveadoi. — Herod, ix. I20. 
 
 ^ ouTW 7ap &.V (SOL SaTxej ivvo^ioi ^porCiv 
 KTiioiar', el Si jxr], k.t.X. — Aes. Choeph. 481.
 
 44 LECTURES ON CLASSICAL SUBJECTS 
 
 Euripides, Menelaus prays to the shade of the 
 late king of Egypt : ' O sire that dwellest in 
 this tomb of stone.' ^ In an ode of Pindar,"^ 
 the ancestors in their tombs by the a-Kvpwra 
 6S6<i or ' paved way ' at Cyrene hear with the 
 senses of the dead (y^Oouio. <ppevl) the procession- 
 song which celebrates their descendant's victory. 
 The idea appears in Virgil in the phrase ' ani- 
 mamque sepulchro condimus ' (Aen. iii. 6y) — we 
 lay the sotil to rest in its tomb. The word 
 for a powerful shade or ghost thus worshipped 
 was y'jpcog. The plural ijpweg is in inscriptions 
 the equivalent of the Roman ' Lares.' In Homer 
 the word meant a great living chief or warrior, 
 and Virgil sometimes reproduces this usage ; 
 but, apart from epic tradition, its meaning had 
 greatly changed. There are three grades of 
 existence or classes of beings : 6eoi, rjphyeg, 
 avOpcoTToi. The ijpoDe^ have a peculiar cult of 
 their own, quite distinct from the worship of 
 the Olympians. The word for it is evayli^^eiv 
 or ' parentare,' not Oveiv or ' sacrificare.' The 
 victim was usually a black ^ male beast ; and 
 when it was struck with the knife, the head 
 
 •' Jj "yipov, 6's oiKeis rhv^e \a.Lvov rdcpov. — JJe/, 9^2. 
 
 ^ Pyth. V. loi. ^ ' Due nigras pecudes.' — Aen. vi. 153.
 
 THE BELIEF IN A LIFE AFTER DEA TH 45 
 
 was held downwards towards the earth, not 
 up to heaven. In Greek the word for the 
 altar also was different, ecryapa and not 
 ^(o/uiog ; in Latin the word ' ara ' had to serve 
 for both.^ The offerings were ' inferiae.' The 
 €a")(apa was a round, hollow structure, not closed 
 at its base ; the blood was poured into it, to 
 sink into the ground and reach the dead who 
 lie below. An altar of this form has been 
 found at Mycenae ; and it proves, if proof 
 were wanted, that Homer's conception of the 
 dead was not the earliest or the universal one. 
 Homer seems to ignore the worship of the 
 dead,2 unless the blood offered to the shades 
 by Od^^sseus be a reminiscence of it ; that he 
 came to ignore it is due, it has been suggested, 
 to the fact that he and his hearers were colonists 
 
 1 ' Stant manibus arae,' Aen. iii. 62; ofterings to the dead, 
 id. 66-67 (milk and blood) ; ' tumulo soUemnia mittent,' Aen. 
 vi. 380. 
 
 2 More exactly, Homer seems to know some of the facts, 
 but to ignore this aspect of them. There are the games in 
 honour of Patroclus. There is the offering of a lock of hair ; 
 but it was meant for Spercheus, and is offered in a spirit of 
 defiance and despair. There is the slaughter before the pyre 
 of the twelve Trojan captives ; but the shade of Patroclus is 
 not invited to drink the blood, as the shade of Achilles is in 
 Euripides : — eXO^ 8' uis tti'tjs fx^Xav \ KSp-qs aKpai.(pi'(s al/j.', 6 (xoi 
 dwpoi'fieda {Hecuba, 536).
 
 46 LECTURES ON CLASSICAL SUBJECTS 
 
 who had left behind them in Europe the tombs 
 of their ancestors. The memory of their 
 deeds remained and became the theme of epic 
 song, but the rites paid to their shades had 
 ceased. 
 
 The notion that the spirit resides in the 
 tomb was not, however, consistently maintained. 
 Primitive belief may have condemned the dead 
 for ever to that narrow home ; but in later 
 times the idea is only a survival, subsisting 
 along with the inconsistent notion of a common 
 realm of Hades or, for the greatest of the 
 dead, the Islands of the Blest. Elysium had 
 been spoken of by Homer as the final home 
 of Menelaus, Hesiod sends to the Ma/cctjocoj/ 
 N^a-oi the heroes of Thebes and Troy, and 
 thither, too, in Attic song, went the liberators 
 of their country : ' Surely not dead art thou, 
 Harmodius dear, but in the Isles of Bliss hast 
 now thy home, with swift Achilles and brave 
 Diomede ' — 
 
 (fitXrad 'A/D/idSi', ov Tt ttov rkdvifKas 
 vrjcroLS 8' cv /xaKoipwv (re (fiacriv eiVat. 
 
 As time went on, the privilege was extended. 
 The word tjpo)^ gained a wider application, until
 
 THE BELIEF IN A LIFE AFTER DEA TH 47 
 
 in late times it comes to be used of the dead 
 generally : //joo)? xpi]o-Te, ^alpe, ' Farewell, good 
 hero,' is a common form of salutation to the 
 departed. The niaKupcou vfjcroi became accessible 
 to all. This, however, is a quite late develop- 
 ment, and it is often rather a poetic fancy or a 
 pious wish than a serious belief^ 
 
 It is to the Islands of the Blest in the Western 
 Sea, and not to Olympus above,^ that the souls 
 of the heroes make their way. They are not 
 admitted to the company of the gods : only a few 
 favoured sons of Zeus, Heracles and Dionysus 
 and Pollux, ascend, like Romulus at Rome, to 
 heaven. Genuine Greek sentiment did not deify 
 a great king after his death, or the ancestor of 
 
 ' ovK lOaves, Upwrrj, fieTi^7)% 5' es dfieivova xcDpof, 
 Kal paUis fxaKCLpup vrjaovs daXirj evl Tro\\y.—An//io/. App. 278. 
 
 There is nothing specifically Christian in this epitaph, but it 
 may have been influenced by Christian beliefs. This is almost 
 certainly the case when a soul is thought of as going to heaven 
 (e.^. Afithol. vii. 672 ; in 673, another epitaph for the same 
 person, the Christian influence is more obvious). 
 
 *In a well-known epigram {aitTi, rlTrre ^e^riKas, k.t.X., Aiithol. 
 Pal. vii. 62), the soul of Plato is thought of as ascending to 
 Olympus. Philosophic thought in some of its forms did contem- 
 plate the ascent of the soul to highest heaven : there was the 
 theory of a pure element of fiery ether, from which the soul 
 was derived, and to which it returned — irvivtxa fikv wpbs aW^pa \ t6
 
 48 LECTURES ON CLASSICAL SUBJECTS 
 
 a great family. Pindar and Bacchylides never 
 suggest such a future for Hiero or Thero. It 
 was the Orientalised Greek of the decadence 
 who made a king into a god after his death, 
 or even in his life. Hence came the deification 
 of the Roman emperors, a thing not accounted 
 for by the worship of the Heroes, but more 
 extravagant than that, since Julius and his 
 successors were numbered among the gods of 
 heaven.^ 
 
 Thus distinguished from the gods of Olympus 
 on the one hand, the heroes are also quite dis- 
 tinct from the ordinary dead on the other. Their 
 worship is more elaborate, more like that of the 
 gods of the earth, the ■)(Q6vioi Oeoir They are 
 more powerful, more divine, protectors of the 
 land.^ The dead might not be buried within 
 
 ^ So Horace associates Augustus with Hercules or Pollux : — 
 ' Hac arte Pollux et vagus Hercules 
 enisus arces attigit igneas, 
 
 quos inter Augustus recumbens 
 
 purpureo bibit ore nectar.' — Odes iii. 3, 9. 
 ' Romulus et Liber pater et cum Castore Pollux ' — ^//. ii. 
 I, 5- 
 
 ^ fiaKapes x^o''"") Chocph. 474, seems to mean the deceased 
 Pelopidae. 
 
 ^ A ship is sent to Aegina ' to fetch the Aeacidae ' before the 
 battle of Salamis. Echetlos and Theseus appear at Marathon.
 
 THE BELIEF IN A LIFE AFTER DEATH 49 
 
 the house, not even within the city ; but a hero's 
 grave may be by the hearth, or under the altar 
 of a god, or in the ayopa. The offerings brought 
 to the dead consist of wine, milk, and honey. 
 Like the heroes, they can influence the fortunes 
 of the living ; but if the rites of burial are duly 
 paid and the offerings brought in due season, 
 they do not return to haunt the upper earth. 
 They returned only at a special festival. In 
 Attica, the last days of the Anthesteria, in early 
 spring, were set apart for the dead : feasts were 
 prepared for them, and they were supposed to be 
 present. At the close of the festival they were 
 bidden to depart, dvpuCe, K^|0e9, omer 'Av9e(TT7/pia, 
 ' Go hence, ye shades, the revels now are ended.' 
 The corresponding celebration at Rome was the 
 Lemuria in May, a festival lasting for three days 
 during which the spirits revisited their earthly 
 homes : at the end of the time the master of 
 the house performs various rites and bids them 
 depart, saying nine times, ' Manes exite paterni.' ^ 
 Apart from this regular and licensed visitation, 
 the dead return only to claim redress for some 
 bitter wrong or to haunt the wrongdoer. So 
 Dido threatens to haunt the faithless Aeneas : 
 
 'Ovid, Fas^i, v. 419 f. 
 D
 
 so LECTURES ON CLASSICAL SUBJECTS 
 
 ' omnibus umbra locis adero.' ^ The wrong, as 
 we have seen, was often the refusal of fire or 
 burial, as in the case of Patroclus. 
 
 The cult of heroes and of the dead in Greece 
 and at Rome was closely bound up with the 
 coherence of the family, the continuity of the 
 yei/09 and the ^ens. The payment of rites to a 
 common ancestor was one of the oldest and 
 strongest bonds of union. Wider communities, 
 whose descent from the same ancestor was ficti- 
 tious or at best unprovable, adopted this symbol 
 of intimate association. Practitioners of a craft 
 thought of themselves vaguely as descendants of 
 its founder (' Aa-KXfjTrtdSai, for example, and so, per- 
 haps, 'Ojur]pi§ai). The new Attic tribes founded by 
 Clisthenes looked upon their iirwi/viuLoi as ancestors 
 {apxvyol). 
 
 2. ELEUSIS. 
 
 The cult of the dead was concerned mainly 
 with the propitiation of them and with render- 
 
 ^Aen. iv. 386. There is a similar threat in Hor. Epodes v. 92 f. — 
 ' nocturnus occurram furor, 
 petamque voltus umbra curvis unguibus, 
 quae vis deorum est Manium.' 
 Valerius Flaccus expressly mentions this privilege of the dead — 
 ' patet oilis ianua leti 
 atque iterum remeare licet.' — Argon, iii. 386.
 
 THE BELIEF IN A LIFE AFTER DEATH 51 
 
 I'ng to them their dues ; in a word, with their 
 relation to the living. Of the existence which 
 was theirs it had little to tell ; and when it 
 lost its hold upon men's minds — as in the case 
 of Homer and his audience — there remained 
 something very shadowy and unsatisfactory : 
 ' Comfort me not about death, Odysseus, for I 
 would rather be the meanest of serfs on the 
 earth above than king over all the vanished 
 dead below.' The desire for something better, 
 happier, and more tangible was satisfied in 
 some degree by the rites or mysteries (opyia, 
 vpt](Tfx.o(rvu)] lepwv) which Demeter herself, accord- 
 ing to the Homeric Hymn, had shown to the 
 princes of Eleusis. 
 
 The •)(Q6vioL Beoi or gods of the earth — 
 of whom Homer with his aristocratic Olympian 
 peia 'QiiovT€<; knows so little — were the gods of 
 a peaceful, settled, agricultural population, of 
 inland districts rather than of maritime towns. 
 From the earth came the corn and the vines : 
 in the earth reposed the bones of the dead. 
 So these gods, Dionysus, and Demeter with 
 her daughter Persephone, have a double function ; 
 they are the gods of the vintage and the 
 harvest-home, and they receive into their charge
 
 52 LECTURES ON CLASSICAL SUBJECTS 
 
 departed souls. Zeus y^ovio^i and Hermes 
 are associated with them. Not one god, but 
 a group of gods is revered at Eleusis. At 
 Rome, Tellus and Ceres, with Dis Pater form 
 the group of gods of the earth. Terra or 
 Tellus is Mania and Mater Larum, the mother 
 of kindly spirits and of the glorified dead. 
 The Lares appear to have been originally gods 
 of the country, and accordingly we find them 
 appealed to in the song of the Arval brothers. 
 
 The worship of the gods of the earth some- 
 how acquired a deeper moral and spiritual 
 significance than that of the Olympian gods. 
 Eleusis had been united with Athens in the 
 seventh century before Christ ; in the sixth, 
 when political troubles and the beginning of 
 scepticism had darkened men's outlook on the 
 world and had created a demand for spiritual 
 consolation, the Eleusinian Mysteries began to 
 acquire influence and importance throughout 
 Greece. In the course of time, Eleusis came 
 to be regarded as the holy place of Hellas 
 and the world's sanctuary, ' hallowed ground, a 
 place of worship common to the whole earth, 
 wherein is centred all that is most divine for 
 men, at once the brightest and the most awe-
 
 THE BELIEF IN A LIFE AFTER DEATH 53 
 
 inspiring of all places ' — nowhere were the 
 raptures of the Blest or the terrors of the 
 Unseen World more vividly impressed upon 
 mortals.-^ During the festival there was a 
 religious truce, a suspension of warfare in 
 Greece, as there was for the Olympian games 
 and other great gatherings. There was no 
 barrier of rank or race. Slaves were admitted.- 
 The only condition was Greek speech, ty]v (pcoi/rjv 
 "Y,X\t]va? elvai. The murderer and the homicide, 
 avSpocpovoi, were excluded ; they however were 
 excluded from any religious celebration. 
 
 The Mysteries themselves seem to have 
 consisted mainly in some sort of dramatic 
 spectacle : ' what is seen ' or ' acted ' at 
 Eleusis is the phrase by which they are 
 described, to. opiiojuepa or to. Spu)/uLeva. There 
 was probably but little dogmatic teaching, 
 little or nothing that could be expressed, or 
 treacherously revealed, in words. ' Aristotle 
 holds that it is properly a matter of feeling 
 or emotion, of putting the spectator into a 
 
 ^ Koivov Ti yTJs ri/j-evos 7] 'EXei/ffis Kai iravTUv daa deia a.vOp(I)rrot.s, 
 iiixa (paibpbTarov ov Koi (ppiKud^ararov {Aristides). 
 
 ^ The expense incurred for /xi'Tjtri? ovoiv tGjv ?i7)fioaiwv stands 
 recorded on stone — for the initiation of two of the slaves owned 
 by the State.
 
 54 LECTURES ON CLASSICAL SUBJECTS 
 
 certain frame of mind — provided he is capable 
 of receiving the impression — not of instructing 
 him in theories or doctrines.' ^ Probably the 
 story of Demeter was presented in some way, 
 the loss of her daughter, her grief and anger 
 and despair, followed by restoration and joy. 
 Different spectators would read different mean- 
 ings into such a vision. But it can hardly 
 have been merely symbolic — a transparent alle- 
 gory of the planting of the seed and the 
 renewal of vegetation, or of the burial of the 
 body and survival of the soul : to suppose 
 that would be to go against analogy and pre- 
 cedent in Greek religion and to make the 
 presentation dogmatic or doctrinal after all. 
 The result was for the initiated the favour of 
 the powers who rule below : when he had to die, 
 he would go to the other world with a more 
 assured hope of happiness. This is expressly 
 stated in extant words of Pindar and Sophocles : 
 ' Thrice happy they who have seen these rites 
 before they go to Hades' realm : they alone 
 have true life, for others there is nought but 
 
 ^ 'ApicTTOTiXr]^ dfiot rovs reXovfiifovs ' ov /J.a6eiv tl deiv dWa 
 iradetv koi SiaTedrjvai,' drjKovoTi ' yevo/Jiivovs iiriTTideiovi ' . — ARIS- 
 TOTLE, Fra^. ed. Rose, i. 15.
 
 THE BELIEF IN A LIFE AFTER DEATH 55 
 
 tribulation.' ^ For the chosen souls of the 
 initiated there is sunshine again beneath the 
 earth. ' Cheerful light is ours,' sing the Mystae 
 in the Frogs, ' ours and ours alone.' - ' The 
 sun shines for them when it is night here, and 
 in meadows full of glowing roses they disport 
 themselves before their city's gates.' They 
 
 watch the chariot whirl 
 about the goal again, and hunters race 
 the shadowy lion, and the warrior-kings, 
 in height and prowess more than human, strive 
 again for glory, while the golden lyre 
 is ever sounding in heroic ears 
 heroic hymns, and every way the vales 
 wind, clouded with the grateful incense-fume 
 of those who mix all odours to the gods 
 on one far height in one far-shining fire.^ 
 
 ' A sun their own they know and stars their 
 own ' — solemque suum, sua sidera norunt — this 
 
 KtivoL ^poTujv ol Tavra depxO^vres t4\t] 
 fidXua' es A'idov rolcrde yap ixbvoi'i iK€i 
 
 ^rjv ^cTTi, Tots 5' dWoicri ttclvt^ iKo. KaKO.. — Soph. Fr. 753. 
 So Pindar : 6\^ios ocrns i8wv eVetfa KoiXav daiv vrro x^ova. 
 Both poets speak of seeing- the rites (depxOevres, idJiv). 
 ^ fx6vois yap rujuv ijXios 
 
 Kal (piyyos iXapbv ^cttlv. — Frogs, 454-455. 
 ^Pindar's Oprjvos, which inspired these lines, may have been 
 composed /or an Athetiian. Tennyson is perhaps not quite 
 consistently Pindaric or Eleusinian in his imagery. ' The
 
 56 LECTURES ON CLASSICAL SUBJECTS 
 
 was one of the golden strands woven by Virgil 
 into the fabric of his poetry, one of the visions 
 that make up his great and complex picture — so 
 unlike the Homeric veKvia — of the world below. 
 Thus Eleusis supplied what the cult of the 
 dead did not give, and what the Homeric 
 Hades excluded — a brighter prospect after 
 death. But it did not give this expressly or 
 solely as the reward of righteousness. The 
 Mystae in Aristophanes, it is true, speak of 
 themselves as ' we who have been initiated 
 and have led a righteous life.' ^ But initiation 
 was the primary condition. Aristophanes him- 
 self shows us another aspect of the matter in 
 the Peace, where Trygaeus, in peril of his 
 life, tries to borrow three drachmae to buy a 
 pig for sacrifice : ' I really must be initiated 
 before I die.' ^ The cynic Diogenes is reported 
 
 shadowy lion' recalls the Homeric Heracles Oripo.'s ofiov 
 eiXevvra. Tennyson's mode of fusing poetic ideas is quite like 
 that of his master Virgil. 
 
 ■• ocTot fie/j-vrifxed' ev — 
 aepi) re diriyo/jLev 
 TpoTTOv nepl Tovs t.ivovs 
 Kal Tovs idiwras. — Frogs, 456 f. 
 
 " es xoipi^ibv /xoi vvv ddveicrov rpeh dpa.xfJ'd.s' 
 del yap fxy-qdrjuai /xe irplv redvrjKevai. — Peace, 374.
 
 THE BELIEF IN A LIFE AFTER DEA TH 57 
 
 to have expressed surprise at the idea that 
 initiation could be all in all. ' What ? ' said he, 
 ' do you tell me that Pataecion the thief, 
 because he happens to have been initiated, 
 will fare better when he is dead than Epami- 
 nondas ? ' ^ 
 
 3. ' ORrHic ' Beliefs and Rites. 
 
 The mythical bard and prophet Orpheus, the 
 ' Threicius sacerdos ' of the Virgilian Elysium, 
 gives a name to a cult of Dionysus which was in 
 many ways different from that of Eleusis. Both 
 worships came to the Greeks from Thrace. But 
 the Eleusinian lakchos was a softened and 
 hellenized Dionysus. Ecstatic phrenzy and the 
 rending of raw flesh had no place in his worship. 
 The Orphic Dionysus retained more of the char- 
 acteristics of his origin. The sleepless Bacchant on 
 the mountains of Thrace or Phrygia — the ' ex- 
 somnis Euias ' of Horace's phrase - — saw what 
 human eyes might not see, and did what human 
 hands unaided could not do ; in ixav'ia or e/ccrTacrt? 
 
 ^ Tt X^7ets ; '(.<^-i], KpeitTOva /xoipav ^^ei llaTacKtwi' 6 KXeirTijs 
 d.TTodai'wi' ■^ 'ETra/j.d.vwi'das, otl /xe/j.vT]Tai ; — PluT. Moj-. p. 21 F. 
 
 ^ Odes III. XXV. 9.
 
 58 LECTURES ON CLASSICAL SUBJECTS 
 
 was revealed a power stronger and more per- 
 manent than the bodily frame. From the North 
 there came to the Greeks strange ideas of the soul 
 and of the reality of a future life. Herodotus 
 speaks of Getae who believe in immortality (rerat 
 OL aOavari^ovre?),'^ and he relates how a tribe 
 called Trausoi welcome a new-born infant with 
 lamentation and make rejoicing over death, 
 Euripides, or one of his characters, in a moment 
 of despondency, approves of this idea.^ But 
 that the other world could be the more real of 
 the two — that life is death and death new life, 
 TO ^fjv luev icTTt Kardavelv, to Kardavelv §e T^v 
 €Kel voixl^eTai — was never anything but a paradox 
 to ordinary Greek sentiment. 
 
 The 'OpcpiKOL or devotees of Orpheus were not 
 representative Greeks at all. The worship of the 
 Thracian Dionysus was at first practised by 
 secret societies or Oiaaroi of foreigners : the rites 
 were altogether unrecognised by the State. 
 There is no trace of Orphic ideas in Homer 
 or Hesiod, no certain and conspicuous appearance 
 of them at all events. Their importance begins 
 
 ^ iv. 93> 94 
 
 " ixpV^ y^P '^f^-o-^ (XvWoyov TTOiovneuovs 
 rbv (pvvra dprjveiv k.t.X. — Cresphontes, Fr. 452.
 
 THE BELIEF IN A LIFE AFTER DEATH 59 
 
 in the latter half of the sixth century. Athens 
 was at this time beginning to attract to itself 
 whatever was stirring in the intellectual world 
 of Greece. Among other things, Orphic worship 
 found its way thither, represented by Onomacritus 
 and other editors of oracles (SiaOercu yj)r]ar^wv) ; 
 but its chief seat was in Southern Italy and 
 Sicily, where it came into association with 
 Pythagorean philosophy. The Orphic system 
 included and was based upon what the public 
 and current religion of Greece lacked — strict 
 dogmatic teaching. 
 
 It was a strange, mystic, and semi-philosophical 
 
 creed, full of symbolism and theocrasia or the 
 
 fusion of many gods in one. The world is now 
 
 ruled by Dionysus, the sixth and last of a series. 
 
 He was preceded by Zeus, Kronos, and Uranos, 
 
 and before these came Phanes and Nyx. Born 
 
 of Zeus and Persephone, Dionysus in infancy is 
 
 destined to supreme godship by his father. 
 
 But the Titans, incited by Hera, entrap him and 
 
 tear him to pieces, seizing him in the form of 
 
 a bull, which he had assumed to escape them. 
 
 They eat all of him but the heart, which is 
 
 rescued by Athena and swallowed by Zeus. 
 
 From Zeus a new Dionysus or Zagreus springs,
 
 6o LECTURES ON CLASSICAL SUBJECTS 
 
 the son of Zeus and Semele. The Titans are 
 destroyed by the thunderbolts of Zeus, and from 
 their ashes the human race is made. Such are 
 the outlines of the story, and in some such form 
 it was related by Onomacritus (extant Orphic 
 writings are of much later date, but the Kepavvodo-L^ 
 of the Titans is known to have been told in his 
 verses). The rending of Dionysus signified the 
 dispersion of the divine being into the multifarious 
 shapes of finite existence, the breaking up of the 
 white light into the rainbow hues of the visible 
 world. The dispersion is effected by a crime, an 
 act of violence — finite, earthly existence is im- 
 plicitly condemned. The Titans are the embodi- 
 ment of evil. In man there is an evil element 
 derived from them, and a good principle derived 
 from Dionysus whom they had consumed. 
 
 This was the Orphic theology or theogony. 
 The duty of man was to free himself from the 
 Titanic element, to escape from the dominion of 
 the body, which was the ' prison ' or ' tomb ' of the 
 soul, the crw/xa was really a arjjua} The unre- 
 generate, unpurified soul was condemned to 
 
 ■* ' neque auras 
 respiciunt, clausi tenebris et carcere caeco.'' 
 
 — Virgil, Aen. vi. 734.
 
 THE BELIEF IN A LIFE AFTER DEATH 6i 
 
 perpetual re-embodiment on earth, ev(TwixaTW(Ti<i : 
 brought at death before a bar of judgment below, 
 the soul was detained for a time in the other 
 world, undergoing punishment and purification, 
 and it then returned to earth to suffer in turn 
 what it had inflicted upon others. Only by a 
 strictly righteous life, by adherence to the Orphic 
 rules, and by ceremonies of expiation, could the 
 spirit hope to escape from a never-ending cycle of 
 earthly lives and attain to rest and peace.^ Here 
 we come in sight of the abuses denounced by 
 Plato — for the Orphic, like the Eleusinian worship, 
 had its lower and more sordid aspect — the sale 
 of indulgences, the practice of expiatory rites 
 by itinerant priests at a small cost, Xva-ei?, 
 KaOap/iiol or TeXerai sanctioned by the Xvcrioi Qeoi 
 or Dionysus Kv(tlo<s. It would seem that release 
 might be purchased for the misdeeds of others — 
 of ancestors, for example — as well as for a man's 
 own.'- 
 
 Besides its foundation in dogmatic teaching, 
 the Orphic system thus possesses several features 
 which are absent or inconspicuous in the popular 
 
 ^ kvkKov re Xr/^ai. Kal dvaTTvevcrai Ka/cirr/ros. 
 2 Xi'iTtc irpoybvwv dOe/xlffTuv 
 
 fxaiofJ-fvoL.
 
 62 LECTURES ON CLASSICAL SUBJECTS 
 
 religion of Greece. It is secret and exclusive ; 
 admission to it is a special privilege ; it draws a 
 line of distinction similar to that between the 
 Church and the World, the ' saved ' and the 
 'unsaved.' (In this, however, it does not stand 
 quite alone : Eleusis does the same thing.) 
 Secondly, it exacts submission : a man cannot 
 save himself. He must sit at the feet of Orpheus 
 and the Orphic priests. Thirdly, its rules are 
 ascetic, it enjoins abstinence from certain things, 
 especially from the eating of flesh. ^ Fourthly, it 
 has the idea of Judgment, of systematic Reward 
 and Punishment which we have seen to be 
 absent, or all but entirely absent, from the 
 Homeric conception of a future life.^ 
 
 Some of the Orphic ideas find expression in 
 the poets of Greece. Aeschylus speaks of the 
 
 ^ ^ht) vvv ai;x€t koX hC dxl/uxov /3opas 
 airois Kcnrrj\€v', 'Op<pia r' avaKr' ix'^" 
 pd-Kxeve, ttoWQi' ypafifidruv ti/mQp KaTrvovs. 
 
 — Eur. Hippol. 952-954. 
 
 ^The punishment of Tantalus, Sisyphus, and Tityus has been 
 already discussed. Homer introduces Minos defiLarevovTa viKVcrcn.v, 
 ius dicente»i ; but there is no hint that he is trying men for their 
 lives on earth — he seems to be merely repeating in the world of 
 shadows what was his function in life above. Homer also knows 
 Tartarus as a place of punishment or a prison ; but it is the prison 
 of the rebel Titans, not of men, and it is quite distinct from 
 Hades, 'as far below Hades as Heaven is above the Earth.'
 
 THE BELIEF IN A LIFE AFTER DEA TH 63 
 
 Judgment Seat below : there is ' another Zeus ' 
 who pronounces the ' last sentence ' upon wrong.^ 
 Pindar is more or less Orphic or Pythago- 
 rean in much that he says about the soul. In 
 his 6pi}voi he naturally gave more scope to such 
 reflections than in his odes of victory : in one of 
 them he spoke of ' expiation for an ancient 
 wrong ' — TTOLvav iraXaiov irevOeo^ — accepted by 
 Persephone : - after nine years, evdrco erei, the 
 souls are sent up to lead a great and prosperous 
 life on earth. In the second Olympian ode he 
 describes at length and with much splendour of 
 imagery the destination of the soul. Thero, to 
 whom this ode is addressed, was an old man, 
 perhaps, like Cephalus, beginning to think about 
 the life to come ; interested too, it may be, in 
 the worship of the -^Qovlol Qeol, which was preva- 
 lent in Sicily — his town Acragas is the ' seat of 
 Persephone,' ^epa-ecpova? eSo?. In the poet's con- 
 ception, the Xucrt? or release is a lofty and moral 
 one. Final happiness is attained after persistent 
 abstinence from all wrongdoing (utto irdix-wav 
 uSiKU)v e-^eiv >\nfy^uv) in more than one existence. 
 
 ' K'd/cet Sticdfet Ta/j.w\aKrjfMad' , dis X670S, 
 
 7j€vs fiXXos if KafLovaiv vardra^ dUas. — Suppl. 236. 
 ^ TT^vdos, sorrow or bereavement, seems to mean here a deed 
 which phinged a whole family in gloom.
 
 64 LECTURES ON CLASSICAL SUBJECTS 
 
 The picture which he draws of the life of the 
 Blest is perhaps as much Eleusinian as Orphic. 
 For the righteous there is sunshine below and 
 fair environment, ' unlaborious earth and oarless 
 sea.' The final consummation is to travel by 
 the road of Zeus to the Tower of Kronos in 
 the juaKupoou vrjo-oi — this presumably after the last 
 life on earth of the finally purified soul.^ What 
 Pindar gives us is poetry and not dogma. Like 
 Virgil and Tennyson, he combines elements 
 which come from various sources ; and his view 
 is doubtless much above the level of the teach- 
 ing of the ordinary Orphic ayvprai and /uavrei?. 
 With them the means of salvation was the pay- 
 ment for expiatory rites, and the final happi- 
 ness held out to the applicant was no very 
 refined one, jueOt] aiwvco?, Plato scornfully calls 
 it^ — which was possibly a Thracian conception 
 of bliss. In some higher and more esoteric 
 forms of doctrine, the moon and the stars were 
 regarded as the residence of the soul after its 
 final purification. But heaven, as we have seen, 
 
 ^ 'exinde per amplum 
 mittimur Elysium et pauci laeta arva tenemus.' 
 
 — Virgil, Ae/z. vi. 744. 
 
 2 Rep. ii. 36 D.
 
 THE BELIEF IN A LIFE AFTER DEATH 65 
 
 was not the destined home of the human soul 
 in any widely diffused form of Greek belief 
 
 The picturesque complexity of Greek thought 
 and belief forms a striking contrast with the in- 
 digenous beliefs of Italy. In regard to the dead, 
 as in its mythology generally, the Italian mind 
 was comparatively barren and unimaginative. 
 The Italian -xOovioi Oeol or deities of earth have 
 already been mentioned. The primitive cult of 
 the dead was probably very similar in Greece 
 and in Italy. Besides the Lemuria, there was a 
 perhaps older festival of the dead in February, 
 the Feralia, a season when it was specially 
 incumbent upon the living to pay tribute to them 
 (^parentare). This festival lasted for a week, 
 ending on February 21st. Later in the year, 
 the spirits were believed to walk abroad on 
 certain days, August 24th, October 5 th, and 
 November 8th, days of Harvest and of Sowing : 
 these were days on which no work might be 
 done, no business be transacted, no army take 
 the field. Italian belief recognised two gods of 
 Death, Orcus and Dis Pater, answering to 
 Thanatos and Pluto. The word ' Orcus ' pro- 
 bably meant a gaoler or a prison-house ; it is 
 
 E
 
 66 LECTURES ON CLASSICAL SUBJECTS 
 
 connected with elpyoo, epKo?, eipKri], and with the 
 Latin words arceo, arx, area, arcanus. But, in 
 spite of this etymology, Orcus was not so much 
 the warder of a distant prison as the terrible god 
 who walks abroad among men and claims them as 
 his victims — reaps a crop, in rustic metaphor, 
 to be stored in his ' locker ' or granary, ' the- 
 saurus.' ^ We seem to have here the old and 
 simple belief of a peasant population. The ruler 
 of the invisible world was Dis Pater, the brother 
 of Jupiter and the husband of Proserpina. 
 
 There was little brightness or beauty in these 
 Italian beliefs ; and a still darker strain, a 
 further element of gloom and terror, was derived 
 from Etruria. The frescoes by Orcagna at Pisa 
 suggest to the modern observer a curious con- 
 tinuity in the Tuscan conception of death. The 
 torture of the wicked, the infliction of acute 
 agony as a punishment, is not very conspicuous 
 in such Greek beliefs as recognise punishment 
 at all. It was, perhaps, a more characteristi- 
 cally Greek idea to plunge the wicked in a 
 
 ^ ' Si metit Orcus 
 grandia cum parvis, non exorabilis auro. ' — HOR, Epp. n. ii. 178. 
 
 ' Thesaurus ' occurs in the epitaph of Naevius : 
 ' postquam est Orci traditus thensauro.'
 
 THE BELIEF IN A LIFE AFTER DEA TH 67 
 
 slimy marsh.^ For an active people, impeded 
 energy and fettered limbs make the worst of 
 punishments. The wheel of Ixion and the 
 deprivations of Tantalus were exceptional 
 things. The idea of torture was more prevalent 
 in Etruria, and the Tuscan god of death was a 
 being of peculiarly grim and savage look, armed 
 with a hammer and a sword. He bore a Greek 
 name, Charun, the name which we know as 
 that of the ferryman of Styx.^ It may be that 
 Virgil was influenced by Tuscan ideas when he 
 gave to Charon a horrible and repulsive aspect.^ 
 The Greek tendency, as Lessing pointed out, 
 was rather to soften and beautify the idea of 
 death. 
 
 Native Italian belief could supply but slight 
 material to an epic poet. So far as we know, 
 it did not divide the unseen world into dif- 
 ferent regions, or provide any definite picture of 
 its scenery, or hold out any very clear hope of 
 happiness for the dead. The elements with 
 which Virgil deals are mainly Greek, derived 
 
 ■" ei's TrrfKbv KaTopvTTovai. rovs iv AWov. — Plato, Hep. ii. 363 D. 
 
 ^ Charon and his boat are not mentioned by Homer. He occurs 
 first in a fragment of the Minyas. — KiNKEL, Fr, Epicorum Grae- 
 coruin, p. 215. 
 
 ^ Aen. vi. 29S f.
 
 68 LECTURES ON CLASSICAL SUBJECTS 
 
 from Greek poetry or Greek philosophy, or 
 from both together. How he uses these elements 
 is a subject for more detailed study, and one 
 which can be only summarised or illustrated 
 here. He adopts the Orphic notion of the 
 ^ body as a prison, but not the strange Orphic 
 theogony ; what Anchises expounds is rather a 
 philosophic theory, the Stoic doctrine of an all- 
 pervading aninia niundi. And this theory is, 
 perhaps, in the last resort hardly consistent 
 with the Orphic and Pythagorean idea of the 
 future re-embodiment of a soul on earth, an 
 idea which Virgil uses very effectively to intro- 
 duce a forecast of Roman story and to glorify 
 Augustus and Marcellus. On the one view the 
 soul is a spark or fragment of a universal 
 spirit into which it is reabsorbed, on the other 
 the individual soul persists in its separate 
 existence. The solution may be that only the 
 finally purified soul is reabsorbed, in a kind of 
 ' Nirvana.' But the truth seems rather to be 
 that the Roman poet had a subtle skill in 
 selecting what was beautiful and impressive in 
 the legends and ideas of the past, but did not 
 make a strenuous effort to weld what he adopted 
 into a logical system. A poet is not bound to
 
 THE BELIEF IN A LIFE AFTER DEA TH 69 
 
 do that ; and Virgil, in spite of the strong bent 
 towards philosophy which tradition ascribes to 
 him, was a poet by temperament rather than a 
 philosopher. The use which Virgil makes of 
 the ' Golden Bough ' is probably another in- 
 stance of his selecting a thing because it is 
 strange and picturesque in itself Much is 
 known about the Golden Bough and its signifi- 
 cance in primitive belief, but there is nothing 
 which explains why it should be an offering to 
 Proserpina and a necessary condition of admis- 
 sion to the unseen world. 
 
 The scheme of the whole, perhaps, lacks that 
 coherence which is given by intensely creative 
 imagination or by resolute philosophic thought. 
 But in execution, and in the presentation of 
 particular scenes, Virgil's art rises to its highest 
 levels in the Sixth Book. Is it a greater poem 
 than the vkKvia of Homer ?^ It is difficult to 
 compare things so different, and the question 
 ' Which is greater ? ' is not a very profitable 
 
 ^ It is not likely that the viKVMi in the lost epics ' Minyas ' and 
 ' NiffToi ' could at all compare with Virgil's in power and interest. 
 In the sphere of painting, a work somewhat akin to Virgil's was the 
 great fresco by Polygnotus in the Lesche of the Cnidians at Delphi. 
 It seems to have been epic in spirit, and to have combined a large 
 number of scenes and ideas.
 
 70 LECTURES ON CLASSICAL SUBJECTS 
 
 one in regard to works of art. The eleventh 
 Odyssey is a great poem too, with wonderful 
 touches of horror and pathos ; of horror, when 
 Agamemnon describes how he met his death, 
 of pathos when Odysseus meets his mother in 
 the world of shadows. But Virgil's work has a 
 wider range ; there is in it a deeper and more 
 subtle sympathy ; there is the majesty of Rome, 
 and the pathos of a recent bereavement in the 
 incident of Marcellus ; there is dramatic interest 
 in the encounter of Aeneas with Dido and with 
 Anchises ; and besides scenes of horror and 
 gloom, there are visions of great beauty, the 
 tranquil tide of the Eridanus flowing through 
 fragrant groves of laurel, and the plains of 
 Elysium bathed in a glowing light all their own. 
 In variety of interest and splendour of imagery, 
 the Virgilian veKvia far surpasses its somewhat 
 bare and simple Homeric prototype. It may be 
 that some deduction should be made from the 
 credit of Virgil. The subtlety is largely due to 
 his living in a much later age, and the variety 
 to the fulness of material which lay to his 
 hand. But it is a wiser course to try to appre- 
 ciate the beauty of the result than to weigh in 
 a balance the merit of the poet who created it.
 
 III. 
 
 THE SUPERNATURAL IN ANCIENT 
 POETRY AND STORY.i 
 
 ' Praesentes namque ante domos invisere castas 
 Heroum et sese mortali ostendere coetu 
 Caelicolae, nondum spreta pietate, solebant.' 
 
 Catullus, Ixiv. 384-6. 
 
 The subject of which I propose to speak may 
 be taken in a wider or a narrower sense. Taken 
 in a wide sense, it would include all the theology 
 of the ancients and their beliefs about an unseen 
 world. I propose to take it in the more re- 
 stricted sense, as including portents or prodigies, 
 miraculous occurrences, apparitions of the dead, 
 the visible interference of some divine or daemonic 
 agency with the normal course of events or the 
 order of nature. And I propose to trace this 
 
 1 A Lecture delivered to the Aberdeen University Classical 
 Society, 15th February, 190 1.
 
 72 LECTURES ON CLASSICAL SUBJECTS 
 
 mainly as an element in literature, a thing of 
 which poets and other writers made a more or 
 less effective and impressive use. Even in this 
 sense, the subject is a large and wide one. The 
 word " supernatural," we may remark at the out- 
 set, belongs to a rather late and modern stage 
 of civilisation : it is a word which can exist and 
 have a meaning only when there is some con- 
 ception of what is " natural," that is, when science 
 has begun, and men think of nature as a system 
 of fixed laws. The Greeks hardly began to 
 think of (^\}(TL<i in such a way before the fifth 
 century, when the sophists contrasted the regu- 
 larity and simplicity of nature with the arbitrary 
 and varying arrangements of human society, ^v(Ti<i 
 with w'/xo? or a-wO^Kyj. No doubt there was some 
 apprehension of the regularity of nature long 
 before this, and, long before, men regarded as 
 miraculous or unusual or daemonic many things 
 that were presented to them by the poet or the 
 sooth-sayer. In primitive times, to go further 
 back, the dividing line is lost or obscured : the 
 primitive mind accounts for most things by causes 
 or agencies which a later generation would at 
 once describe as supernatural. Eclipses, for 
 example, are the work of evil spirits or witches,
 
 THE SUPERNATURAL 73 
 
 practising their baielul spells upon the bright 
 luminaries of the sky. This idea remained long 
 in the popular mind, and it comes to the surface 
 in quite late ages. The din of clashing metal 
 was supposed to repel or scare away the evil 
 influence, and Tacitus relates in the Annals 
 (i. 28) that, when an eclipse of the moon oc- 
 curred during the mutiny in Pannonia, the soldiers 
 had recourse to this device, striking bronze 
 against bronze and blowing horns and trumpets. 
 The primitive view was not unlike what is 
 said in an aphorism of Thales, " the world is full 
 of gods," iravTa TvXii'jpy] Oecov : spirits or daemonic 
 powers are at work everywhere. The whole of 
 nature was supernatural. Gradually, as time went 
 on, the sphere of such agencies was restricted, 
 until in the present day it takes the utmost 
 exertions of a psychical society to find a single 
 authenticated case. 
 
 What we are concerned with, from our literary 
 point of view, is the presentation of incidents 
 which the writer feels to be miraculous and un- 
 usual, and which he expects to be felt by his 
 hearer as startling and impressive : not every- 
 thing which a modern man of science would 
 reckon supernatural. Such an incident occurs in
 
 74 LECTURES ON CLASSICAL SUBJECTS 
 
 the nineteenth book of the Iliad, when the horse 
 Xanthus speaks to Achilles with a human voice, 
 a voice, we are told, lent to it by the goddess 
 Hera. When the horse has revealed to him 
 something of the action of the gods, and some- 
 thing of his own future, its speech is stopped 
 by the Erinyes. The order of nature, to use 
 the language of a later age, has been violated, 
 and it is vindicated and restored by the dread 
 goddesses who also upheld the ties of natural 
 affection among men. This is not the only in- 
 dication which points to the Erinyes as the 
 guardians of natural law. The same idea appears 
 in a remarkable saying of Heraclitus ; " the sun 
 cannot deviate from his course : if he does, the 
 Erinyes will find him out." Again, a man who 
 had been in a trance — apparently dead — was not 
 allowed to set foot in their shrine. It is a rule 
 of nature that a man may not die twice. Any- 
 body who was so unreasonable as to do so — the 
 poet Hesiod was said so to have offended — incurs 
 the displeasure of the Furies. We seem, then, 
 to find in these goddesses a mythological antici- 
 pation of the idea of Natural Law. But it was 
 not they alone who exercised such a supervision. 
 Zeus, the ruler of the gods, is concerned with the
 
 THE SUPERNATURAL 75 
 
 maintenance of order. And further, there are the 
 M-olpai or Fates, who are sometimes thought of 
 as superior to Zeus, When Admetus had to be 
 rescued from death, they were deaf to entreaties 
 and could only be deluded ; Apollo relaxed their 
 vigilance by giving them wine. These goddesses 
 are not very distinctly personified in Homer. 
 They seem to be later and more allegorical than 
 the Erinyes. Sometimes fxolpa means little more 
 than the portion dealt out to men by the gods. 
 In Homer, there is a further safeguard against 
 arbitrary interference with the natural course of 
 events. The consensus of the other gods may be 
 appealed to against any one god who threatens 
 to cause a disturbance. So, in the first book of 
 the Odyssey, Zeus says that Posidon will hardly 
 persist in his prosecution of the hero, if the rest 
 set their faces against it. There is also an in- 
 teresting case in the Iliad. Zeus himself is 
 strongly disposed to rescue his son Sarpedon 
 from impending death : it is /xolpa, he says, that 
 Sarpedon must perish, but he would like to inter- 
 pose. Hera points out to him that such a course 
 will meet with general disapproval, and that it 
 will be a most dangerous precedent : many of 
 the immortals have sons or grandsons fighting
 
 76 LECTURES ON CLASSICAL SUBJECTS 
 
 in Troy, and this mischievous example may be 
 imitated ! 
 
 What, we may here ask, is the general spirit 
 or tendency of the Homeric poems in such 
 matters ? It is a rather matter-of-fact and " secu- 
 lar" spirit, almost a sceptical tendency. Hero- 
 dotus says that Homer and Hesiod created Greek 
 theology, or gave it an authoritative poetic form. 
 It would be almost equally true to say that the 
 Homeric poems represent the destruction or 
 humanisation of a theology. Many things which 
 had been mythology are written out afresh, as 
 it were, in the form of a simple human story. 
 It is not altogether improbable that Odysseus 
 was a sun-god, who, like Hercules and Osiris 
 passes under earth ; and Penelope, it has been 
 thought, is the moon, who weaves and unweaves 
 the web of her disc by night, ' tenuata retexuit 
 orbem.' But in Homer all this is forgotten or 
 ignored. Odysseus is a mere man, and so far 
 from being the sun he incurs the wrath of that 
 deity when his comrades slay the oxen of Helios. 
 To take one other instance — it is a decidedly 
 curious and less familiar one — readers of the 
 ninth book of the Iliad will remember that 
 Agamemnon's proposed reparation to Achilles
 
 THE SUPERNATURAL 77 
 
 included the offer of seven Lesbian women, in 
 place of Briseis or rather in addition to Briseis' 
 restoration. It seems to have been made out 
 that behind this simple incident there lies a 
 whole world of mythology. The Muses in Les- 
 bos were seven in number, not nine, each 
 associated with a town of the island and daugh- 
 ters of Makar, who is the Phoenician Melkarth. 
 Castor and Pollux, again, are spoken of in the 
 Iliad simply as men who are dead. Neither 
 they nor their sister Helen are deities or lumi- 
 naries of heaven, as they probably were in 
 Laconia. Ancestor-worship hardly has any place 
 in the Homeric world. There are no mysteries 
 or mystic ideas of religion : the murderer, for 
 instance, is not shunned as a polluted person 
 under a ban : he merely pays compensation to 
 the kindred of his victim, or flees the country 
 to avoid their vengeance. 
 
 It is in keeping with this general tendency 
 that Homer introduces the gods in a very casual 
 and familiar way. He touched the stories with 
 a light hand, sometimes in an almost frivolous 
 way, and he rarely produces the sense of mystery 
 and awe, the literary quality or effect which we 
 are looking for. Contrast with Homer one of
 
 78 LECTURES ON CLASSICAL SUBJECTS 
 
 the most impressive incidents in tragedy — the 
 disappearance of Oedipus. The aged sufferer is 
 summoned by the gods to his place of rest. 
 He is accompanied by Theseus alone. One of 
 Theseus's attendants describes what happened, 
 what they saw from a distance. ' We could see/ 
 he says, ' that Oedipus had vanished, and we saw 
 the king, now alone, holding his hand as a 
 screen before his eyes, " as though some dreadful 
 sight had met his vision, a sight no man could 
 bear to look upon," ' 
 
 (OS Setvou Tivbs 
 <f)6j3ov <^avevTos oi'S' dvacr^^erou (iXkireiv, 
 
 Compared with this, the apparition of a god 
 in Homer is a very commonplace affair. Some- 
 times the Homeric hero is hardly even discon- 
 certed by it. ' Go back, daughter of Zeus, go 
 back from the battle and the combat,' says 
 Diomedes to Aphrodite, ef/ce, Aio? dvyarep, 
 TToXe/uov KOI §)]i6Tt]T09. Hc IS not afraid to use 
 his weapons against her and against Ares. In 
 the Odyssey the gods appear with rather more 
 reserve, in a more fugitive and occasional way, 
 and generally under some disguise. But there 
 is no very material difference. Odysseus sees 
 many wonderful things in his travels ; but these
 
 THE SUPERNATURAL 79 
 
 are located in very distant lands, and they are 
 
 rather wonders of Nature than supernatural 
 
 things. Perhaps the most striking example of 
 
 the supernatural in the Odyssey — apart from the 
 
 'NeKuia — is the vision of Theoclymenus. ' Ah, 
 
 wretched men, what woe is this ye suffer ? 
 
 Shrouded in night are your heads and faces and 
 
 knees, and kindled is the voice of wailing, and 
 
 all cheeks are wet with tears, and the walls 
 
 and the fair spaces between the pillars are 
 
 sprinkled with blood. And the porch is full 
 
 of phantoms and full is the court, the shadows 
 
 of men hasting hellwards beneath the gloom, 
 
 and the sun has perished out of heaven, and 
 
 an evil mist has overspread the world.' ^ The 
 
 vision is seen by the seer alone : he reads to 
 
 the suitors their impending fate, but they mock 
 
 at him and disbelieve it. The scene has a 
 
 distinctly Celtic character, whereas Scylla and 
 
 Charybdis and the Cyclops recall rather the 
 
 fairy-tales of Teutonic or Scandinavian peoples. 
 
 In the I/t'ad there is an incident which recalls 
 
 Celtic ideas in a similar way, the ' second-sight ' 
 
 with which Hector is endowed at the moment 
 
 ^ Od. XX., 350 f. I quote from the translation by Butcher and 
 Lang.
 
 8o LECTURES ON CLASSICAL SUBJECTS 
 
 of death, and which enables him to predict to 
 Achilles the fate which awaits him at the Scaean 
 gates by the hands of Apollo and Paris. There 
 is little mention of magic or incantations in 
 Homer. ' They bound up the wound skilfully, 
 and stayed the black blood with a song of 
 healing' (^Od. xix. 457, kiraoihj S' al/ma KeXaivou 
 ea-)(€dov). This is the only passage in Homer 
 where the word e-TraoiSr'] occurs, and the use of 
 cTTwSai or spells was a regular part of ordinary 
 medical practice in Greece. 
 
 After Homer came the so-called ' Cyclic ' 
 poets, who appear to have treated heroic stories 
 in a more systematic manner. Homer in the 
 I/zad deals with the events of a very short 
 period of time. In the cyclic poets the whole 
 course of the siege of Troy was related. Who 
 these poets were and what was the exact extent 
 of their various poems is a very debatable 
 question. There is enough evidence to show 
 that their manner and their ideas were very 
 different from those of Homer. To take one 
 matter which we have already met with : the 
 primitive atonement for murder, which appears 
 in Homer, is no longer sufficient ; the murderer 
 must be purified by expiatory rites (KaOapjULol) :
 
 THE SUPERNATURAL 8i 
 
 Achilles is so purged by Odysseus, in Lesbos, 
 for the death of Thersites. We are near the 
 age of the Mysteries and the Orphic priests. 
 Along with this we may note progress in 
 science. In the art of medicine specialisation 
 has begun : Machaon is a surgeon ; Podalirius 
 concerns himself with more subtle disorders, and 
 it is he who first detects the incipient madness 
 of Ajax. For our present subject, the extant 
 fragments and the summary of Proclus seem to 
 show that these poets used the supernatural 
 with less reserve and restraint than Homer. 
 At all events, we meet with a number of very 
 curious things. Telephus miraculously healed 
 by Achilles ; the fate of Troy bound up with 
 the safety of the Palladium ; a living and 
 branching vine of gold given to Laomedon by 
 Zeus ; Lynceus, whose vision travels to any 
 distance and is not obstructed by any material 
 obstacle that may intervene, for from the top of 
 Taygetus he descried Castor and Pollux as they 
 sat concealed within a hollow oak-tree ; Laocoon 
 destroyed by the snakes ; and the shade of 
 Achilles appearing above his tomb to the 
 assembled Greeks to demand the sacrifice of 
 Polyxena — a remarkable occurrence, and one 
 
 F
 
 82 LECTURES ON CLASSICAL SUBJECTS 
 
 which specially claims the attention of Psychical 
 Societies, for it is just what they want to find, an 
 instance of a ghost not appearing to one person 
 or in a dream, but seen by a large number of 
 people together. That this incident belonged to 
 the cyclic poets is only probable, not directly 
 proved. The sacrifice of Polyxena occurred in 
 the Iliu Persis of Arctinus — that is stated by 
 Proclus. The apparition of Achilles no doubt 
 preceded it, for it is mentioned in Attic tragedy, 
 which derived its Trojan story largely from the 
 cyclic poets. 
 
 The early Lyric and Elegiac poets, who 
 intervene between Homer and Tragedy, and 
 some of whom were contemporary with ' cyclic ' 
 poets, present little that is of importance for our 
 present inquiry. I will mention only one thing 
 which appears in them — and I mention it 
 because I have already spoken of the super- 
 natural explanation of eclipses. It is the super- 
 natural explanation of sunrise. How did the 
 sun get back to the east after setting in the 
 west? This was a problem which greatly 
 exercised the primitive mind. One view was 
 that he went back under the earth, whence the 
 descents to Hades of various solar heroes and
 
 THE SUPERNATURAL 83 
 
 gods. According to a fragment of Mimnermus 
 and another fragment of Stesichorus, he sailed 
 back on the surface of the sea, in a golden 
 boat or shell with wings, moulded for him by- 
 Hephaestus. Obviously, Helios would not want 
 this boat for a journey from east to west, for 
 he travels by day through the sky ; so Heracles 
 was able to borrow it, when he went on his 
 mission to Gades against the three-headed 
 monster Geryon. The fragment of Stesichorus 
 describes how he disembarks and takes his way 
 into the forest, while Helios steps on board for 
 his eastward voyage. Heracles was thus left 
 in Spain without a boat. He had to come 
 back by land, and he came back through Italy, 
 encountering on his way the fire-breathing giant 
 Cacus of the eighth Aeneid, who, it would seem, 
 was an ancient and inoffensive fire-god of the 
 Palatine or Aventine, transformed by poetic 
 fancy into a dangerous monster. Stesichorus 
 was a poet of Sicily, and his ideas about 
 Heracles would readily find their way to Italy 
 and Rome. 
 
 Tragedy, we have seen, depended in large 
 measure upon the cyclic poets for its incidents ; 
 and Tragedy gives us at least one apparition
 
 84 LECTURES ON CLASSICAL SUBJECTS 
 
 similar to that of Achilles, the appearance of 
 the shade' of Darius in the Persae. The 
 venerable ghost of the late king is deliberately 
 summoned by impressive incantations or invoca- 
 tions (^vyaywyoi <y6oi, 1. 689), and after discourse 
 with the living, departs again to its prison- 
 house, with an impressive hint in its last words 
 about the powers below ; they are stern and 
 strict, ' more apt to grasp than to let go their 
 
 grasp.' 
 
 o\ Kara, t^^ovos deoi 
 
 Xa/Seiv afxuvovi elalv rj [xedtevai. 
 
 Another tragic ghost is the shade of Polydorus, 
 who delivers the prologue to the Hecuba, but 
 he is seen only by the audience, who do not 
 count. So at the opening of the Ajax the 
 audience probably see Athena ; but Odysseus, 
 though he converses with her, does not. Apart 
 from gods and ghosts. Tragedy also makes use 
 of oracles and of fateful or prophetic dreams. 
 Of such dreams the most famous was that of 
 Clytaemnestra, borrowed by Aeschylus from 
 Stesichorus : the snake, symbolising Orestes, 
 draws blood from her breast — in the lyric poet 
 the dream was perhaps more complex, and 
 contained further elements of horror. Besides
 
 THE SUPERNATURAL 85 
 
 these things, tragedy dealt with some stories of 
 transformation. Horace lays it down in the 
 Ars Poetica that such things are not to take 
 place on the stage : Cadmus is not to turn 
 into a snake before the eyes of the spectators, 
 or Procne into a swallow. Probably the greater 
 poets at least observed this rule. There is, 
 however, a curious fragment of Euripides, in 
 which Cadmus is speaking at the moment of 
 transformation. ' Woe is me, half of me is 
 turning into a snake : my son, embrace what 
 is left of your father ' ! 
 
 ot/^ot SpaKtjv fiov yiyverai to y' -rjfxiav 
 TCKVov, TrepnrXaKTjdi tw A-oitto! TrarpL 
 
 But this may come from the pijo-i^ of an 
 ayyeXo^, who narrated the scene and reported 
 the words of Cadmus. Transformations like 
 these were collected by Alexandrian poets 
 under the title of 'F^TepoiovjuLeva, and passed 
 from them into the hands of Ovid, who uses 
 the word ' Metamorphoses.' Such stories be- 
 longed rather to the common people : they 
 were popular, local tales ; and this leads to a 
 general remark about Greek legend. The 
 ancient poet hardly ever invented a story ' out
 
 86 LECTURES ON CLASSICAL SUBJECTS 
 
 of his head,' a completelj^ new and original 
 story. Homer and the earlier poets had dealt 
 mainly with legends of an aristocratic type, 
 the stories of kings and kingly houses, like 
 that of the Pelopidae. By the Alexandrian 
 age this material was nearly exhausted : a poet 
 who touched it ran the risk of being denounced 
 as a kukXiko^, or conventional epicist. So the 
 Alexandrian poets had to dig deeper, as it 
 were : a new stratum of legend is brought up 
 to the surface : popular stories of a romantic 
 cast, local tales of the origin of places (dealt 
 with in the A'lria of Callimachus), and fairy- 
 tales of transformation. All these veins we see 
 worked by Ovid. For Ovid, though not Alex- 
 andrian in style — for he is lucid and diffuse, 
 while the Alexandrians were tortuous and allu- 
 sive — is as a rule thoroughly Alexandrian in 
 the material with which he deals. 
 
 This process of digging deeper, of going 
 down to tales current among the people, 
 naturally meant some recrudescence of the 
 supernatural element. One of the things which 
 thus came to the front and found a place 
 in poetry was witchcraft. This is the theme 
 of one of the Idylls of Theocritus, the
 
 THE SUPERNATURAL 87 
 
 ^apjuuKevrpiu, imitated by Virgil in his eighth 
 Eclogue : ' ducite ab urbe domum, mea car- 
 mina, ducite Daphnim.' Besides this, there is 
 in Apollonius the arch-sorceress Medea, the 
 niece of Circe — for her father Aeetes and Circe 
 were children of Helios — who enables Jason to 
 defy the fire-breathing bulls, to baffle the crop 
 of armed warriors, and to cast the spell of 
 slumber upon the dragon that guards the 
 golden fleece. The power to whom Medea 
 appeals is Hecate, the dread goddess of ghosts 
 and magic, 'Ei^o^/a, the queen of the dark 
 cross-roads at midnight when spectres walk 
 abroad. It was not only in her native Colchis 
 that Medea exercised her spells. The death of 
 Pelias in Thessaly is a well-known tale, and the 
 destruction of her rival at Corinth, the daughter 
 of the Corinthian king. I will mention, instead of 
 these, a less-known incident, which is extremely 
 curious. On their homeward voyage the Ar- 
 gonauts approached the island of Crete. Now, 
 there dwelt there a giant named Talos who 
 was the last survivor of the Race of Bronze. 
 The Brazen race, we are told, was not so 
 depraved as the present race of iron ; but 
 Talos at once adopted a hostile attitude, and
 
 88 LECTURES ON CLASSICAL SUBJECTS 
 
 began to hurl large fragments of rock at the 
 ship in a dangerous manner. Medea made an 
 end of him by a sort of telepathy or wireless 
 telegraphy, shooting at him deadly glances, 
 which confused his mind. He stumbled on the 
 cliffs and was mortally injured in the only 
 vulnerable part of him, which was the ankle. 
 
 The special home of witchcraft was Thessaly. 
 Lucan, describing in his Pharsalia a campaign 
 fought there, makes a gruesome and rather 
 exaggerated use of Thessalian witchcraft. At 
 the request of Sextus Pompeius, a Thessalian 
 sorceress brings a dead man to life and forces 
 him to foretell the future. The story contains 
 some points of interest for the theory of witch- 
 craft. It is the ' black art ' — a thing condemned 
 by the gods above. It is an unlawful appeal 
 to the powers of the nether world. Sextus is 
 convinced that the gods of heaven are not 
 sufficiently well-informed (' scire parum superos,' 
 Phars. vi. 434). It is in Thessaly that the 
 necessary means are to be found : the most 
 potent herbs grow there, and even Medea 
 found new ones when she came thither from 
 
 Colchis : ..... 
 
 ibi plunma surgunt 
 
 vim factura deis,
 
 THE SUPERNATURAL 89 
 
 * vim factura deis,' things that can put con- 
 straint upon the gods — this is the essence of 
 magic, as contrasted with legitimate prayer and 
 supplication ; the god is compelled to act, he 
 has no choice. Lucan then enumerates many 
 of the things which magic spells can do. They 
 can inspire passion, they can arrest the revo- 
 lution of the stars and prolong the night, 
 they can cause rain and thunder and storms 
 without the consent or even the knowledge of 
 Jupiter ; they can freeze the torrent in mid- 
 air and turn back the course of rivers ; they 
 can tame wild animals and disarm the rage of 
 snakes. The poet wonders how the gods come 
 to submit to such constraint, and proceeds to 
 speak of eclipses caused by magic art. He 
 then describes the peculiar and dreadful powers 
 of the witch Erichtho, and unfolds with every 
 circumstance of horror the process by which 
 she recalls one of the dead to life and makes 
 him speak once more. 
 
 Witchcraft is dealt with by Horace in two 
 of the Epodes and in one of the Satires, but 
 it is rather the nefarious practices of witches 
 that he depicts than any successful achievement 
 in eliciting supernatural manifestations. Horace
 
 90 LECTURES ON CLASSICAL SUBJECTS 
 
 seems to be a sceptic about such things. At 
 the end of the Satire in which he describes 
 the journey to Brundisium, he refuses to believe 
 in a miracle that is shown to him. ' I have 
 learnt that the gods spend their days in tran- 
 quillity, and that the wonders of Nature are 
 not sent by angry gods from their high home 
 in heaven.' ' Deos didici securum agere aevum ' 
 — the words he uses are the words of Lucre- 
 tius, and he seems to be acknowledging disciple- 
 ship. It was Lucretius who taught him and 
 others this salutary lesson. This, in fact, was 
 the great service rendered by Lucretius, that 
 he helped men to think of the world as the 
 realm of unvarying law, a system to be trusted, 
 not the playground of malignant and unpre- 
 dictable agencies. We must think of him as 
 helping mankind to awake from an evil dream. 
 In Rome's greatest poet, Virgil, there is not 
 very much that is supernatural in our restricted 
 sense of the word. There is the traditional 
 epic machinery of gods and goddesses, and 
 there is the splendid and impressive descent of 
 Aeneas to Hades in the sixth book. Apart 
 from this, there are some portents, such as the 
 flame which plays about the hair of Lavinia
 
 THE SUPERNATURAL 91 
 
 (Aen. vii.). The most startling instance of the 
 supernatural is when the ships of Aeneas slip 
 their cables and are transformed into nymphs 
 of the sea {Aen. ix.). 
 
 There are these prodigies, and there are 
 apparitions of the dead. The appearance of a 
 ghost is perhaps the commonest form of the 
 supernatural, and a complete account of the 
 subject would have to include a separate dis- 
 cussion of the ancient ghost. 
 
 The appearance of Achilles to the assembled 
 Greeks we have seen to be an exceptional 
 thing. Much more commonly the spirit appears 
 to a single person in a dream. To the ancient 
 mind, a dream is not a purely ' subjective ' 
 thing, a mere hallucination. Modern Science 
 gives some such account of a dream as the 
 following. The brain may be regarded as a 
 machine which translates : it translates the 
 vibration of an optic nerve into the perception 
 of an object in space. And if the nerve is 
 in some way disturbed or vibrates without an 
 external cause, the brain performs its function 
 all the same and translates the disturbance 
 into a vision. This is Schopenhauer's general 
 account of a dream, anticipated to some extent
 
 92 LECTURES ON CLASSICAL SUBJECTS 
 
 by Aristotle. No such idea was familiar to the 
 ancients generally. The spirit is seen in a 
 dream : but the spirit is really there, it has come 
 from its distant home to visit the sleeper. So 
 Patroclus appears to Achilles in Homer, 'all night 
 long the ghost of unhappy Patroclus stood by 
 me, wailing and crying upon me,' -^vyj] ecpecrrrjKei 
 yoococrd re /uLvpo/mei^rj re. So Hector appears to 
 Aeneas, ' ante oculos maestissimus Hector visus 
 adesse mihi ' (Aen. ii.). Or, if the spirit itself 
 does not come, a wraith or phantom, an elSooXov, 
 is sent by the gods, such as the spectre of 
 Anchises which floats down from heaven to 
 visit Aeneas {Aen. v. 722) ' facies caelo delapsa 
 parentis Anchisae ' — ' caelo delapsa ' — the dead 
 in ancient belief do not go to heaven above, 
 but to Hades under earth, or to the islands of 
 the Blest in the Western Ocean. This idea of 
 a wraith or image detached from the real 
 person or soul appears in a poem of Tennyson, 
 who had a subtle and penetrating knowledge 
 of ancient ideas. The bereaved mother, Demeter, 
 relates how an image of her daughter came 
 to her and spoke : 
 
 ' Last, as the likeness of a dying man. 
 Without his knowledge, from him flits to warn
 
 THE SUPERNATURAL 93 
 
 A far-off friendship that he comes no more, 
 So he, the god of dreams, who heard my cry, 
 Drew from thyself the likeness of thyself 
 Without thy knowledge, and thy shadow past 
 Before me, crying, ' The Bright One in the highest 
 Is brother to the Dark One in the lowest. 
 And Bright and Dark have sworn that I . . . 
 Should be for ever and for evermore 
 The Bride of Darkness.' 
 
 It may be a phantom, but it is still something 
 external to the sleeper, not a mere illusion or 
 creation of the troubled mind. 
 
 Darius in the Persae explains that it is 
 hard to return to earth, consent is not easily 
 obtained. It is chiefly to claim redress for some 
 grievous wrong that the spirit returns : so Dido 
 threatens to haunt Aeneas, ' omnibus umbra 
 locis adero.' Frequently the wrong is the re- 
 fusal of due rites of burial. ' The souls keep 
 me aloof,' says Patroclus to Achilles, ' and will 
 not let me cross the river to join their com- 
 pany.' The funeral fire must be lit. ' When ye 
 have paid me the tribute of fire, I shall return 
 no more.' 
 
 01' ya/3 ir avrts 
 VLCTOfJiai €^ 'AiSao, iirt'^v fjL€ irvpos XeAai^T^re. 
 
 It is this grievous wrong that Antigone in 
 Sophocles resents for her brother. Eteocles is
 
 94 LECTURES ON CLASSICAL SUBJECTS 
 
 €vri^o<i vcKpoh, honoured among the dead, but 
 Polynices is an unburied outcast. The aggrieved 
 spirit, when it reappears on earth, usually wears 
 the aspect that it bore in life, the outward sem- 
 blance of the man as he was. ' It was like him 
 in everything,' says Homer of the shade of 
 Patroclus, * in stature and in the beauty of its 
 eyes and in its voice, and the garments that it 
 wore were like his,' Sometimes, however, the 
 apparition resembles the man as he was at the 
 moment of death. Thus Hector comes to Aeneas 
 as he looked when he had been dragged behind 
 the car, ' raptatus bigis, ut quondam, aterque 
 cruento pulvere.' There are many other indi- 
 cations of a similar belief In the eleventh 
 Odyssey the hero sees, among the dead, warriors 
 with blood-stained armour, /BefSpoTcojueva reuy^e 
 e-^ovra<i. So, too, Oedipus confidently expects 
 that he will be blind in Hades : he justifies his 
 act by saying that he could not look upon 
 the face of his father or his mother in the 
 unseen world. The same idea explains the 
 practice known as iJ-aa-^^akia- ij.6<s : a murderer cuts 
 off the hands, or the hands and feet, of his 
 victim to disable the angry spirit from its 
 pursuit of vengeance.
 
 THE SUPERNATURAL 95 
 
 The ancient ghost, then, does not appear in 
 the form of a skeleton, or wrapped in a winding 
 sheet : there is no rattHng of bones or clanking 
 of chains. Are these the morbid fancies of 
 races that do not practise cremation ? One is 
 tempted to think so. The fire consumes the 
 bodily frame, only a "^^y}] «^«' e[^w\ov survives, 
 the soul flits away like a dream {Od. xi. 222). 
 
 Much more might be said on this subject, 
 and on other aspects of the supernatural. But 
 in place of further discussion or exposition, I 
 prefer to quote two continuous passages. One 
 is in the Mostellaria of Plautus, the other in 
 Lucian. ' Mostellaria ' is a title answering to 
 ' The Haunted House.' There is no ghost — the 
 whole thing is a trick devised by a clever slave, 
 Tranio, whose object is to deter the owner of 
 the house from entering it. 
 
 Theopropides. — You say that I am not to knock 
 at the door or touch the house ? Why not ? 
 
 Tranio. — For the last seven months not a 
 man has set foot within the door since we left. 
 
 Th. — Explain. Why so ? 
 
 Tr. — Just look round to see that there's no- 
 body who can overhear us. 
 
 Th. — Oh, it's quite safe.
 
 96 LECTURES ON CLASSICAL SUBJECTS 
 
 Tr. — Look again. 
 
 Th. — There's nobody. Go on. 
 
 Tr. — It is a crime of the deepest dye. 
 
 7;^._What? I don't follow you. 
 
 Tr. — A crime, I say, done long ago, years 
 and years past. 
 
 Th. — Long ago ? 
 
 Tr. — Yes, but we have only now found it out, 
 you see. 
 
 Th. — What's this crime you talk of? Who 
 committed it? Tell me. 
 
 Tr. — The host overpowered and slew his 
 guest, being, as I take it, the man who sold 
 the house to you. 
 
 77z.— Slew him, did he? 
 
 Tr. — Yes, and took his gold from himj and 
 buried him on the spot, within the house. 
 
 Xh. — What reason have you for suspecting 
 such a thing ? 
 
 Tr. — Listen, I'll tell you. Your son had 
 been dining out one evening, and when he 
 came home we all went to bed. We fell asleep. 
 As it chanced, I had forgotten to put out one 
 of the lamps. All of a sudden he shouted out 
 at the top of his voice. 
 
 Th.—\Nho shouted? My son?
 
 THE SUPERNATURAL 97 
 
 Tr. — Hush, hush : listen a moment. He said 
 that the dead man had come to him in his sleep. 
 
 Th. — In his sleep, you say ? 
 
 Tr. — Yes ; just listen a moment. He said 
 that the dead man spoke to him thus 
 
 Th. — In his sleep ? 
 
 Tr. — You don't suppose he would speak to 
 him when he was awake — a man who had been 
 killed sixty years ago ? You are sometimes 
 a little slow in picking up things, Theopropides. 
 
 Th. — I won't interrupt again. 
 
 Tr. — Well, look you, this is what the dead 
 man said : ' I am Diapontius, a guest from over 
 sea. I dwell here ; this is the home assigned to 
 me. For Orcus refused to admit me to Acheron, 
 seeing that I have died before my time. I am 
 the victim of a breach of trust ; my host slew 
 me, and secretly, without burial, thrust me under- 
 ground in this house, miscreant that he was, 
 to get my gold. You must now seek another 
 home. This is the house of guilt, and to dwell 
 in it is an offence.' It would take me a year 
 to tell you the strange things that go on here, 
 and I couldn't do it then. 
 
 r//.— Hush, hush! 
 
 Tr. — What is it, in the name of Heaven ?
 
 98 LECTURES ON CLASSICAL SUBJECTS 
 
 Th. — The door creaked. 
 
 Tr. {loudly, to the spirits). — It was he who 
 knocked, not I ! 
 
 Th. — I haven't a drop of blood in my body. 
 The dead are summoning me to go below. 
 
 Tr. {aside). — I'm lost ; these people inside will 
 spoil the game. I am much afraid that he will 
 find me out. 
 
 Th. — What are you muttering to yourself? 
 
 Tr. — Go away from the door ! Fly ! Fly, 
 I entreat you ! 
 
 Th. — Where am I to fly? Fly yourself! 
 
 Tr. — Oh, I have no fear : I am on good 
 terms with the spirits. 
 
 A Voice from within. — Hullo, Tranio ! 
 
 Tr. — You won't address yourself to me, if you 
 are wise. I haven't done anything ; it wasn't I 
 who hit the door. 
 
 The passage from Lucian is one of many 
 ghost stories related in the dialogue Philopseudes. 
 Lucian's attitude is, of course, a satirical and 
 sceptical one. The stories are clever parodies of 
 what was current in his day. In the course of 
 the conversation, a Pythagorean philosopher, 
 named Arignotus, comes in, and the sceptic.
 
 THE SUPERNATURAL 99 
 
 who is in a minority of one, hopes that he has 
 at last found an ally. But he is disappointed. 
 Arignotus thinks that there is something to be 
 said for the view that it is only the ghosts of 
 those who have met with a violent death that 
 return to walk the earth. But beyond that limi- 
 tation he has no doubts. ' If you are ever in 
 Corinth,' he says, ' inquire for the house of 
 Eubatides, and say when you get there that 
 you want to see the house from which Arignotus 
 the Pythagorean expelled a ghost.' 
 
 We may note in passing that the word for 
 ' ghost ' or ' spirit ' is generally o ^aljxwv. 
 Often applied to the gods, and applied to them 
 in a quite impressive and reverential way, the 
 word Suifxoov seems to have suffered some degra- 
 dation with the lapse of time. It came to suggest 
 intervention in the affairs of men — to mean not so 
 much a god enthroned in Olympus as a god or 
 spirit of any grade making his presence felt on 
 earth. The adjective (^iifxai'ioi; is quite unlike 
 Oeio? in its isage, and it really answers very 
 closely in many cases to our word ' supernatural.' 
 
 ' What was that, Arignotus ? ' — the conversa- 
 tion proceeds — the host Eucrates asks. 
 
 ' The house,' he replied, ' had for long been
 
 loo LECTURES ON CLASSICAL SUBJECTS 
 
 rendered uninhabitable by apparitions, and when 
 any one did try to Hve there, he very soon 
 fled in terror, driven out by some appalHng 
 visitant from the other world. So the house 
 was falling into ruin, its roof was breaking 
 up, and there was no one who would pluck 
 up courage to enter it. On hearing of this 
 I took my books — I have many Egyptian works 
 on such subjects — and proceeded to the house 
 after nightfall, though my host tried to dissuade 
 me and all but laid hands on me, when he 
 learned where I was going — to face certain peril, 
 as he supposed. However, I took a lamp and 
 went in alone. Putting down the light in 
 the largest room of the house, I seated myself 
 on the floor, and was quietly perusing one of 
 my volumes, when the spirit presented himself, 
 taking me for an ordinary person (eTrt Tiva rwu 
 ttoWmv i]Keiv vo/jl'lXwv) and expecting to scare 
 me out of my wits as he had done the others. 
 He was an unkempt figure, blacker than the 
 pit, with long hair. There he was, doing his 
 utmost to get me into his clutches by assaults 
 on every side, and turning into a dog at one 
 moment, and into a bull or a lion the next' 
 This ghost, we may observe, is an evil-minded
 
 THE SUPERNATURAL loi 
 
 ghost, given to mischief; he does not come in 
 the plain Hkeness of the living, as Patroclus 
 does, to ask burial for his bones, but has 
 apparently been demoralised by the fun of 
 frightening people. 
 
 Arignotus proceeds : ' Availing myself of 
 the most blood-curdling formula I could find, 
 and speaking in the Egyptian tongue, I exorcised 
 him with such effect as to drive him into the 
 corner of a dark room, and noting the spot 
 where he went underground I spent the rest 
 of the night in slumber. Next morning, when 
 everybody had given me up for lost and 
 expected to find only my dead body, I astonished 
 them all by my reappearance, and approaching 
 Eubatides, I congratulated him on the fact that 
 he would now be able to inhabit the house in 
 peace. So I took him and many others, who 
 were attracted by curiosity, and conducting them 
 to the spot where I had seen the ghost vanish, 
 I told them to take spades and picks, and dig. 
 On their doing this, there was found, at a depth 
 of six feet, a body long decayed, of which the 
 bones only remained in place. So they dug 
 him up and buried him, and from that day the 
 house ceased to be disturbed by apparitions.'
 
 IV. 
 THE AGE OF GOLD. 
 
 'Aurea, quae perhibent, illo sub rege fuere 
 Saecula : sic placida populos in pace regebat.' 
 
 — ViRG. Aen. viii. 324-5. 
 
 The feeling that Society is imperfect and 
 capable of improvement has at various times 
 prompted men to draw a picture of a better 
 and happier community, an ideal commonwealth, 
 or a race living a more tranquil life under 
 more favourable conditions than ours. Some- 
 times the Utopia or ideal country is placed in 
 a remote region of the earth, and introduced 
 by the more or less transparent fiction of travel 
 and discovery. Sometimes it is distant in time. 
 It is projected into the future, or found in the 
 supposed records of a remote past. In recent 
 times the tendency has been to look forward 
 to the distant future. It is easy to find
 
 THE AGE OF GOLD 103 
 
 examples : visions or forecasts of this kind are 
 set forth in such books as Lord Lytton's Coming 
 Race, The Revolt of Man by the late Sir Walter 
 Besant, and Looking Back, by an American 
 author, a picture of an age to which the present 
 one is ancient history. With the Greeks, the 
 opposite tendency is more conspicuous. Plato's 
 Atlantis is an island that once existed in the 
 sea beyond the Pillars of Hercules, but is now 
 submerged. The ' Golden Age ' of ancient poets 
 is a primeval age of innocence and bliss. The 
 modern man looks in one direction, the Greek 
 in another. Why this contrast should exist, 
 if it does exist, it would be difficult to say. 
 Some probable causes of it may be suggested. 
 Rapid progress in mechanical science, the con- 
 quest of steam and electricity, has prompted 
 the thought of further advance. With deeper 
 moral feelings or ideas there has come a greater 
 dissatisfaction with the actual world, a stronger 
 desire for progress, and with that, it may be, 
 a greater reluctance to contemplate the idea that 
 things are worse than they once were. At the 
 same time. Ethics and Anthropology have 
 brought us to a clearer conception of primitive 
 man and of early stages of civilisation. The idea
 
 I04 LECTURES ON CLASSICAL SUBJECTS 
 
 of a past Golden Age rests to some extent on 
 a fallacy. Go backwards, undo what has been 
 done : take away the vices of civilisation, and 
 the virtues will be left. We know now that 
 tne virtues would not be left, and were not 
 there. The vices and virtues grow up together, 
 and by going back we arrive, not at what is 
 highly moral, but at what is crude, half-conscious, 
 and non-moral. With the Greeks and Romans, 
 in a less critical and less scientific age, there 
 was a strong tendency to idealise the past, to 
 believe in great and good ancestors or founders, 
 and to attribute to them all that was wise and 
 salutary in the old institutions they knew. 
 Further, the Greek had, I think, in this respect 
 a ' good conceit of himself He thought he 
 had done rather well : his civilisation stood out 
 in marked contrast to that of his ' barbarian ' 
 neighbours. He was little troubled with the 
 idea of a universal morality to be achieved : 
 ' the parliament of man, the federation of the 
 world,' was a thing of which he thought little, 
 and which he would hardly think worth striving 
 for. And, instead of contemplating indefinite 
 progress or improvement, he often thought 
 rather that whatever was worth finding out
 
 THE AGE OF GOLD 105 
 
 must have been found out already h tw ttoXXw 
 y^povw, ev Toh ttoXXoi^ erecriv : if there were good 
 things which the present age knew not, some 
 past age had probably known them, but these 
 approaches to perfection had been terminated 
 by some (jyOopd or cataclysm, which forced the 
 human race to learn its lessons over again. 
 We shall find, however, that the contrast which 
 we have drawn between the ancients and the 
 moderns holds only with large reservations. 
 Some of the ancients do contemplate a future 
 Golden Age, and some are quite aware of the 
 fallacy involved in supposing that a primitive 
 people is primitively innocent. Both these 
 reservations or exceptions are found in the 
 extant fragments of old Attic comedy. 
 
 Hesiod, perhaps even more than Homer, 
 was ' the Bible of the Greeks,' a storehouse of 
 traditions and precepts to be interpreted and 
 expanded, or misinterpreted, with more or less 
 ingenuity and intelligence. One of the ideas 
 furnished by this storehouse was that of a past 
 Golden Age, a remote period from which a 
 gradual transition had been made to the 
 present age of iron.^ The race was of gold, 
 
 ^ Works and Days, 109 f.
 
 io6 LECTURES ON CLASSICAL SUBJECTS 
 
 Xpvcreov yepoi, perhaps thought of as literally 
 made of the precious metal.^ Next came a 
 race of Silver, then one of Bronze. But here the 
 series had to be interrupted. Before the present 
 age came the age of the Heroes, who were 
 ancestors of noble houses in Greece. They 
 could not be ignored. So the process of 
 degeneration is interrupted. Then follows the 
 Iron age, full of crime, misery, and oppression ; 
 for Hesiod takes a gloomy view of his own 
 time and in some degree represents the feelings 
 of the oppressed, of the peasantry rather than 
 of the chiefs for whom Homer sang. The heroes 
 who fought at Thebes and Troy go after death 
 to the Islands of the Blest. The Golden Race 
 become guardian spirits, Sai/moveg, who walk the 
 earth unseen, and watch over the destinies of 
 men. The Silver Race survives too after death, 
 
 1 It is doubtful how far, and in what sense, the metals are 
 symbolic. No doubt they were largely so. Gold is the metal of 
 greatest value and beauty. The race of silver is feebler and less 
 dutiful in its conduct. Bronze and iron are metals wrought with 
 more labour, and metals from which weapons of war are made. 
 These two later ages are periods of warfare, toil, and crime. 
 
 Hesiod says that the Brazen Race was made from ash-trees, 
 eK /j.e\idv. Apollonius seems to think of a man of the Brazen 
 Race as actually made of the metal (A7-gon. iv., 1643, 1646): his 
 blood flowing from a wound resembles lead (1680).
 
 THE AGE OF GOLD 107 
 
 but under earth as fxaKapeg 6vi]rol, without this 
 protecting power. 
 
 In this passage of Hesiod there are two 
 h'nes which are of special interest. In one of 
 them the poet expresses a wish that he had 
 either died earlier — before the age of Iron — or 
 had been born later : >/ irpoaQe Oaveiv 5) eweira 
 yevecrOai. It is possible to interpret this as 
 implying a belief that the age of Gold would 
 return, and we may perhaps see in Hesiod's 
 phrase the first germ or suggestion from which 
 the idea of a future Golden Age was to grow.^ 
 The other line is perhaps an interpolation ; it 
 comes in a little strangely and awkwardly. 
 ' They ' — the Race of Gold — ' lived in the time 
 of Kronos, when he was King of Heaven.' 
 The undisputed text says, when a new race 
 is created, that ' the sfods made it,' aOavaToi 
 
 i3^ 
 
 ^ It has been thought that Hesiod contemplates three series 
 or cycles of degenerating ages : one which begins with the age 
 of Gold and ends with the age of Bronze ; a second, beginning 
 with the Heroes and ending with the age of Iron ; and a third, 
 which Virgil foresees, ' ultima Cumaei venit iam carminis aetas,' 
 Cumaean meaning Ilcsiodic, since Hesiod's traditional birth- 
 place was Cyme in Asia Minor. 
 
 But it is against this that Hesiod expressly calls his own age 
 'the Fifth'; and 'Cumaei' in Virgil is more naturally taken 
 to refer to Sibylline prophecy.
 
 io8 LECTURES ON CLASSICAL SUBJECTS 
 
 -TTolrjcrav ; and when the Silver Race became 
 rebellious, ' Zeus overwhelmed it in his wrath.' 
 In later versions of the story the Golden Age 
 is generally presided over by Kronos or Saturn, 
 whose rule was of a very different kind from that 
 of Zeus. It was lenient, indulgent, peaceful : 
 men lived in affluence on the spontaneous fruits 
 of the earth ; their temper was not tried, their 
 ingenuity or courage evoked, by dangers and 
 difficulties. 
 
 When we next meet with the idea of a 
 Golden Age — extant Greek literature does not 
 enable us to trace its development continuously 
 — it has come into the hands of philosophers, 
 and is beginning to acquire new and deeper 
 meanings. In the fifth century it appears in 
 Empedocles and in some of the sophists, and a 
 little later similar ideas are found in Plato. 
 Empedocles, who held that all things were 
 composed of the four commonly recognised 
 elements, earth, water, fire and air, accounted 
 for the composition of them and their dissolu- 
 tion by supposing two contrary agencies, Nei'/co? 
 and $iX/a, Strife and Concord, which sundered 
 and united respectively. He seems to have 
 held further that in the history of the world
 
 THE AGE OF GOLD 109 
 
 now one principle prevailed and now the other. 
 An extant fragment of his poem describes a 
 past age which had been presided over by 
 $/X/a : ' No war-god had they, or Ku^ot/uo? ' 
 (Havoc or Rout personified), ' no Zeus for King 
 or Kronos or Posidon, but only Kypris for their 
 Queen.' Picturesque and rather fanciful in 
 Empedocles, the idea of a past age of bliss 
 becomes in the hands of contemporary or 
 slightly later sophists a vehicle for what we 
 should call theories of social evolution. There 
 had been a simple and natural period, untainted 
 by the artificialities of civilisation : the arrange- 
 ments of civilisation were arbitrary, they had 
 no root in Nature or in natural law, they were 
 due to convention or mutual agreement, v6iJ.o<i 
 or trvvO/iKt]. It was in this spirit that Hippias 
 of Elis attempted to revert to primitive condi- 
 tions, to revolt against division of labour and 
 organised manufacture, by making with his own 
 hands everything that he required — his shoes, 
 his cloak, and his house. Such ideas must have 
 been much talked of in the fifth century, for 
 they became a theme of comedy. In the frag- 
 ments of the elder contemporaries of Aristo- 
 phanes, Crates and Pherecrates, we find traces
 
 no LECTURES ON CLASSICAL SUBJECTS 
 
 of the treatment of a savage or primitive mode 
 of life. In the "Kypioi, or ' Savages ' of Phere- 
 crates, the chorus consisted of luia-dvOpunroi, 
 haters of mankind, who abandoned civiHsation 
 and went to live in the woods.^ The experi- 
 ment was a failure. Before long they found 
 themselves pining for the company of Eurybates 
 and Phrynondas, who presumably were two of 
 the most disreputable characters at Athens, 
 rascals who represented civilisation at its worst. 
 From the same play we have a statement about 
 a past age of simplicity : there were no house- 
 hold slaves, male or female ; the women did all 
 the work with their own hands. A passage 
 from Teleclides describes at length a past age 
 of such plenty and spontaneous abundance that 
 no domestic labour was required. In the Qrjpla, 
 or 'Wild Beasts' of Crates, an ingenious person ^ 
 has formed a project for restoring this state of 
 things. It is to be done by mechanism. Things 
 are to become automata : ' I will give every- 
 thing legs and make it walk,' oSonropovvra yap 
 
 ^ Plato, Protagoras, 327D. 
 
 2 Or was it one of the Beasts? Fragment 17 (ed. Kock) sug- 
 gests the possibility that in this play the Beasts were entrusted 
 for a time with the general management of affairs— mankind 
 having made no great success of it !
 
 THE AGE OF GOLD iii 
 
 TO. izavr eyo) irou^a-w. Then he gives illustra- 
 tions of the scheme. ' Where is the cup ? Cup, 
 go and rinse yourself out,' ' Fish, come to 
 table.' ' Excuse me, but I am done only on 
 one side.' ' Then turn yourself over, and give 
 yourself a sprinkling of salt.' There is to be 
 no more shouting for slaves to carry pitchers of 
 hot water when you want a bath. Water is to 
 be carried in pipes on columns, so that it can 
 be turned on in a moment — a curious anticipa- 
 tion of the Roman aqueduct and the modern 
 bath. The whole idea is not uninteresting or 
 unimportant ; it anticipates the modern hope of 
 relegating to machinery the more degrading or 
 monotonous tasks. We have here, moreover, a 
 feature of the Golden Age, the absence of slaves 
 and slave-labour, a state of things which was 
 restored for a time at the festivals of Saturn. 
 Another play, which bore the title * Golden 
 Race,' 'Kpvaovv Tevog, seems to have been 
 political rather than social in tendency. It 
 dealt with the ambitious projects of Cleon. The 
 author was Eupolis. 
 
 In Plato, a passage of the Politicus expounds 
 the notion of cycles or alternate periods, better 
 and worse, orderly and disordered. For a time
 
 112 LECTURES ON CLASSICAL SUBJECTS 
 
 the world is guided in its course by the deity 
 who created it ; then he leaves it to itself, 
 stands aloof and looks on from a distant point 
 of vantage : so the world, being largely material 
 and imperfectly permeated by reason, spins 
 backward, as it were, reversing its motion : all 
 things grow older instead of growing stronger 
 and younger. Age and decay beset them. This 
 is the period in which we now live. The 
 sudden change or reversal is imperfectly recorded 
 by legend in the story of Atreus, according to 
 which the sun changed his course in horror at 
 human crime. In the better period, under 
 divine guidance, living creatures were born old 
 or mature, and gradually became more vigorous 
 and youthful. Persons born a few years before 
 the reversal came, with grey hairs, never arrived 
 at maturity or youth, but turned back on their 
 path, as it were, grew old again and died. 
 Indefinite progress onward in the same direction 
 is not an idea familiar to the ancients. 
 
 Roman poets borrowed largely from Alexan- 
 dria, and in an extant Alexandrian poet, Aratus, 
 there is a passage of some length which relates 
 the degeneration of mankind — Aratus was a 
 follower of Hesiod — and the departure of Dike
 
 THE AGE OF GOLD 113 
 
 or Astraea from the earth. In the Golden Asre 
 she moved freely among men and was often 
 seen. In the age of silver, her presence became 
 rarer, and her mien was different. She dwelt in 
 the high mountains, and occasionally came down 
 to their spurs or lower slopes, ' in the after- 
 noon,' to preach a sermon to an evil and per- 
 verse generation. Her discourse contains a 
 phrase which is strikingly like a well-known 
 passage in Horace, and perhaps suggested it : 
 ' What a race the golden sires have left behind 
 them, worse than were they, and your offspring 
 will be baser still.' ^ With the advent of the 
 Brazen Race she fled to Heaven and became 
 the constellation Virsfo. 
 
 Aratus exerted some influence at Rome, poor 
 poet though he was. Cicero translated him 
 into Latin Hexameters, as did Germanicus later. 
 The Golden Age, suggested in this and in other 
 ways to the Romans, had considerable attractions 
 for them. They, or at all events some of their 
 chief writers, had a strong liking for the country, 
 and an interest in simple and primitive life. In 
 
 ^ dirfv xpvcmoL Trar^pes yeveriv iXlwovTO 
 XiipOTepr]v' iifieU d( KaKibrepa Te^eieaOe. 
 
 — Ar. Phaenomena, 11. 123-4. 
 H
 
 114 LECTURES ON CLASSICAL SUBJECTS 
 
 Roman poetry the characteristics of the golden 
 age of Saturn are described at some length : 
 Peace and Plenty, the absence of crime and 
 misery, no dealings with the sea or travelling to 
 strange lands ; no commerce, no avarice or 
 hoarded wealth ; a vegetarian diet, abstention 
 from the flesh of animals, — here we come upon 
 another vein of thought which affected the 
 belief in an age of gold, the Pythagorean inter- 
 dict against eating flesh. Under Saturn there 
 was no bloodshed, no slaughtering of animals, 
 no wounding of men. All this was reserved for 
 the sterner rule of Zeus — 
 
 ' At love sub domino caedes et volnera semper : 
 nunc mare, nunc leti mille repente viae.' 
 
 Life under Jupiter was more hazardous, more 
 enterprising, more laborious. According to Ara- 
 tus, it was the Brazen Age that first knew the 
 shedding of blood. ' They were the first to 
 forge the deadly knife of the highwayman, the 
 first to taste of the ox that ploughed for 
 them.'^ Aratus does not say anything about 
 
 ^ ol TvpQ)TOi KaKoepybv exo-^xevaavTO fia-xo-i-po-v 
 eivo5i7]t>, TTpLOTOL 8i ^ou)v iirdcfavT' apoTTjpwv. — Pkaen. I3I-2. 
 In the Q-qp'ia of Crates, already referred to, the animals seem 
 to have protested successfully against being eaten : the diet
 
 THE AGE OF GOLD 115 
 
 Kronos or Saturn. The Romans made much 
 of him — not that he was probably a popular 
 or widely worshipped deity, in any time of 
 which we have definite records. He was an 
 agricultural deity : his name, Saturnus or Sae- 
 turnus, is perhaps to be connected with sowing 
 {sero^ satiwi) ; and he was associated with 
 the Capitoline Hill, which, according to Virgil, 
 bore the name Saturnia {Aen. viii., ' laniculum 
 huic, illi fuerat Saturnia nomen '). According to 
 Virgil also, Saturn ruled as King in Latium 
 when he had been expelled from Heaven by 
 Jupiter ; he civilised the people, and taught 
 them to till the soil. It is difficult to deter- 
 mine how much is genuinely Italian in the 
 cult of Saturn. ' Saturn belongs, like Janus,' 
 says Mr. Warde Fowler, ' to an age into whose 
 religious ideas we cannot penetrate, and sur- 
 vived into Roman worship only through Greek 
 resuscitation and in the feast of the Saturnalia.' 
 
 of the restored Golden Age is to be vegetarian, in accordance 
 with Orphic or Pythagorean precept. ' silvestres homines . . . 
 caedibus et victu foedo deterruit Orpheus,' Hor. A. P. 391. An 
 animal might be a kinsman re-incarnate : see Empedocles 428 
 (ed. Stein) and the following fragments. I fail to see why Rohde 
 (Psyche, p. 418) should accuse Horace of misunderstanding Aristo- 
 phanes [Fj-o^^s 1032, (pdvuv t' dTT^x^ff^at). Pythagorean ideas were 
 well known at Rome.
 
 ii6 LECTURES ON CLASSICAL SUBJECTS 
 
 In the KjOowa or Saturnalia a feature of the 
 supposed primitive age was revived : the re- 
 lationship of master and slave was effaced or 
 inverted. They sat at the same table : the 
 custom was, according to a fragment of the 
 poet Accius, ' ut cum dominis famuli epulentur 
 ibidem.' If the master did not actually feast 
 with his slaves, he kept out of the way, and 
 gave them as little trouble as possible : thus 
 Cicero says he will not go to one of his country 
 seats at the time of the Saturnalia, ' that I 
 may not be a burden to the household,' ^ A 
 similar suspension or inversion of ordinary 
 relations is recorded as having been customary 
 in x'\rcadia, when sacrifice was offered to the 
 Heroes.^ Thus the idea of a Golden Age, 
 mythical and fanciful in many of its forms, was 
 not without its practical value. It was a /uvOog 
 with a Xoyog or rational principle underlying 
 it. It was a way of recognising the artificiality 
 
 ^ ' Ne molestus familiae veniam.' 
 
 "^ Athen. iv. 149 D (quoting Theopompus). Accius expressly 
 speaks of the custom as belonging to the Greek Kpo^/ta and 
 derived thence by the Romans. But there is a lack of evidence 
 for this. There are indications of an agricultural origin. When 
 all harvesting is over, and the autumn sowing done, master 
 and labourer enjoy a period of rest and festivity together.
 
 THE AGE OF GOLD 117 
 
 and imperfection of existing institutions ; it 
 suggested the idea of improving them, and it 
 helped to afford a temporary respite to the 
 oppressed. 
 
 At this point in the inquiry we may pause 
 to observe a little more closely the contrast 
 between Kronos, the ruler of the Golden Age, 
 and Zeus, the present King of the Gods. This 
 is the theological interest of the myth. What 
 was the character or method of government 
 attributed to Zeus ? It was not lenient or 
 beneficent on principle, or at all events not 
 directly so. The Greeks, and the Romans like 
 them, were an active-minded and energetic race ; 
 and sometimes we seem to find the feeling 
 that the Golden Age would have been ex- 
 ceedingly dull. It was a time of rest and 
 indolence. Zeus was a harder task-master ; 
 under him men were disciplined by trials and 
 troubles : ' The Father willed it that the path 
 of husbandry should be no easy one, it was he 
 who first broke up the fields by craft, whetting 
 to sharpness by sufferings the minds of men.' ^ 
 
 ^ ' pater ipse colendi 
 baud facilem esse viam voluit primusque per artem 
 movit agros, curis acuens mortalia corda, 
 nee torpere gravi passus sua regna vetemo.' — Georg. i. 121 f.
 
 ii8 LECTURES ON CLASSICAL SUBJECTS 
 
 The prevailing idea of the Georgics is that 
 man is engaged in an uphill contest with 
 Nature. All things tend to relapse into waste 
 and wilderness, but for the persistent toil of 
 the husbandman. The same idea is expressed 
 by Lucretius. Under Saturn the earth had 
 borne all its fruits unasked and untilled. But 
 Zeus would not allow his subjects to sink into 
 the torpor of sloth. 
 
 This conception of Zeus is often overlooked 
 by modern readers. It seems to have been, 
 on the whole, the conception of the greatest 
 theological poet of Greece, Aeschylus. Aeschylus 
 is clearly trying to expound and enforce a 
 higher conception of Zeus than the current 
 one ; and the modern reader is apt to think 
 that he regards Zeus as consistently beneficent 
 — to assume, for instance, that in the sequel 
 of the Promethean trilogy some compact was 
 arranged by which Zeus consented to govern 
 leniently. There is no evidence for this in 
 what is known of the trilogy, and elsewhere, 
 in a chorus of the Agamemnon, Zeus is ex- 
 tolled as the permanent ruler — in contrast with 
 Uranos and Kronos, who have passed away — 
 who ' leads men on the path of thought, who
 
 THE AGE OF GOLD 119 
 
 has laid it down for ever that they must learn 
 by suffering.' ^ Mercy and leniency, it has been 
 said, are the qualities hoped for in an Oriental 
 despot : what the free Greek praises in the 
 King of the Gods is Justice and Discipline. 
 Prometheus' (piXavOpwTria was no new and 
 higher principle which was to triumph. It 
 was a predilection of his own for a feeble race 
 whom Zeus intended to destroy and supplant 
 by another. Prometheus thwarted the design 
 and was punished, but his punishment came 
 to an end, for he possessed a secret which 
 was important for Zeus. That seems to be 
 the strict content of the drama, if it is read 
 without prejudice and modern preconceptions. 
 
 To return to the Golden Age, we must 
 allow that the idea of its recurrence in the 
 future is not at all conspicuous. There is no 
 confident expectation of it, and little thought 
 of it as a thing to be worked for and brought 
 about by deliberate effort. But there is one 
 remarkable poem in which its coming is pre- 
 dicted, the Fourth Eclogue of Virgil ; and in 
 
 1 rbu (ppovelv ^poroiis 65u)- 
 ffavra, rdv Trddr) fidOov 
 divra Kvpius ^X^i-v. — Agam. 176 f.
 
 I20 LECTURES ON CLASSICAL SUBJECTS 
 
 the Aeneid, written much later, Augustus is 
 
 spoken of as destined to restore a Golden 
 
 Age to Latium, the country once ruled by 
 
 Saturn — 
 
 ' aurea condet 
 saecula qui rursus Latio regnata per arva 
 Saturno quondam.' ^ 
 
 The Fourth Eclogue is not, however, explained 
 by a mere reference to this passage of the Aeneid. 
 It was written long before the battle of Actium, 
 when Octavian was a triumvir. The only per- 
 son named in it by the poet is Pollio, and the 
 coming of the Golden Age is associated with 
 the birth and growth of a child who cannot - 
 be the offspring of Octavian, for his only child 
 was a daughter, Julia. Who was the child 
 whom Virgil had in view ? And in thinking of 
 a child at all, was he influenced in any way by 
 Jewish ideas of a coming Messiah, ideas which 
 may quite possibly have become known at Rome 
 by this time ? No very certain answer can be 
 given to these questions. Probably the second 
 should be answered in the negative. As to the 
 first, the identification of the child, there is one 
 definite piece of traditional evidence which at 
 
 ^ Aen. VI. 792-4. ^ But see note at the end of this lecture.
 
 THE AGE OF GOLD 121 
 
 least requires careful consideration. Pollio's son, 
 Asinius Gallus, was born about the time of the 
 Eclogue, and Asconius, an able and learned 
 critic of the age of Nero, left it on record that 
 Asinius Gallus had told him that he, Gallus, 
 was the child contemplated by Virgil. Gallus, 
 whose father was a friend of the poet, must 
 have had ample opportunity of learning what 
 the intention of the poem was. If he made this 
 claim without warrant, we seem almost driven 
 to the conclusion that Virgil's picture was fanci- 
 ful — if it was not, there would be some definite 
 claimant in the field, and Gallus could hardly 
 make his claim at all. Is it intrinsically prob- 
 able, and consistent with the language of the 
 poem, that Gallus was the child ? It is said 
 of the child that he is to rule with his father's 
 virtues a pacified world, or to rule a world 
 pacified by his father's virtues — 
 
 'pacatumque reget patriis virtutibus orbem.' 
 
 The phrase is ambiguous. If ' patriis virtutibus' 
 be read with ' pacatum,' there is a clear allusion 
 to the part played by Pollio in arranging the 
 Treaty of Brundisium. But we cannot with 
 certainty read the words in this wa}'- ; and what
 
 122 LECTURES ON CLASSICAL SUBJECTS 
 
 of ' reget ' ? He is to rule the new and better 
 world : could this be said of any child unrelated 
 to Octavian ? Perhaps this is not an insuper- 
 able difficulty : we do not know much about 
 the circumstances of the time. Octavian may 
 have had special reasons for conciliating Pollio 
 and acquiescing in a compliment paid to him. 
 For all we know, he may himself have said, 
 ' This child will see a better age dawn upon 
 Italy,' thus suggesting the idea to the poet. 
 But there is one passage in the Eclogue which 
 it is somewhat difficult to reconcile with the 
 theory that Gallus is the child. It is where 
 Virgil addresses Pollio — 
 
 ' teque adeo decus hoc aevi te consule inibit, 
 Pollio, et incipient magni procedere menses.' 
 
 ' In your consulship this glorious age will begin.' 
 It is not impossible, but it seems strange that the 
 poet should use these words if Pollio was the 
 father of the child. Why ' in your consulship,' 
 if so much more can be said ? On the whole, 
 we cannot take it as certain that Asinius Gallus 
 was the child intended. 
 
 Some of Virgil's imagery and some of his 
 ideas we have already met with. ' lam redit et
 
 THE AGE OF GOLD 123 
 
 Virgo, redeunt Saturnia regna.' The maiden is 
 Justice, or Astraea (who became the constellation 
 Virgo) — her departure had been described by 
 Aratus and others. The next line seems to be 
 Hesiodic : ' iam nova progenies caelo demittitur 
 alto,' a new race is sent down from high Heaven, 
 Hesiod's ' aQavaroi Troujcrav.' Further on, when 
 wars are done and the Golden Dawn is broaden- 
 ing into Golden Day, we have a feature which 
 appeared in Aratus : the trader will desert the 
 sea, and no vessel will carry merchandise from 
 land to land — 
 
 ' cedet et ipse mari vector, nee nautica pinus 
 mutabit merces.' 
 
 In general, I think we must say of Virgil's 
 picture that its features have precedent in Greek 
 and Roman legend. There is nothing clearly 
 extraneous in the imagery. Nor is it easy to 
 recognise anything extraneous in the metrical 
 form of the poem. It has been argued that 
 the sense frequently ends with the end of the 
 line, and that the poem thus falls into short 
 sections or strophes, analogous to the structure 
 of Hebrew poetry. But there is fairly frequent 
 division of lines at the ' caesura,' as in 
 
 'mutabit merces: omnis feret omnia tellus,'
 
 124 LECTURES ON CLASSICAL SUBJECTS 
 
 and looking at Virgil's versification in the 
 Eclogues generally, I think that one must say 
 that, writing on a graver theme, with solemnity 
 and artistic finish, he would write very much 
 what he has written. There is no certain infer- 
 ence that he had any extraneous model before 
 him.^ 
 
 The occasion of the Eclogue has been recently 
 discussed by Professor W. M. Ramsay, who, 
 while reviving the theory that Virgil was 
 acquainted with Jewish ideas, develops also a 
 suggestion which had been made by Kiessling, 
 that Virgil had in view the sixteenth Epode 
 of Horace, and intended to reply to it. 
 Horace despairs of his country. Rome is 
 wasting its strength in endless civic conflict. 
 
 1 It is clear that Virgil had in mind a poem of Catullus — the 
 ' Epithalamium Peleos et Thetidis ' with its prediction of Achilles' 
 birth and prowess. ' Talia saecla, suis dixerunt, currite, fusis ' 
 is an unmistakable reminiscence. It is characteristic of Catullus 
 that the sense often ends with the end of the line. Moreover, 
 the rhythm ' mutabit vellera luto,' ' crescentes vestiet agnos,' is 
 frequent in Catullus and his contemporaries, as is the ending 
 ' magnum lovis incrementum.' The versification of the Eclogue 
 seems to be sufficiently accounted for by Roman precedent. 
 
 It seems even possible that the association of the Golden Age 
 with the birth and growth of a child— the thing for which it is 
 hardest to find any analogy in Greek and Roman legend— is 
 explained by the influence of Catullus.
 
 THE AGE OF GOLD 125 
 
 He appeals to the better-minded of her citizens, 
 who have still some spirit and courage left, 
 to abandon Italy and seek a new home in the 
 Western Ocean, where Jupiter has reserved for 
 the righteous the Islands of the Blest. The 
 Romans are to follow the example of the 
 Phocaeans, who left their homes in Asia to 
 found Massilia in the distant West. Virgil's 
 view — or his answer to Horace — is that the 
 Golden Age is beginning here and now, in 
 Italy, and he predicts in the near future the 
 realisation of the blessings which for Horace 
 are attainable only by emigration. There are 
 striking coincidences in the language and 
 thought of the two poets when they describe 
 these blessings. But it is, perhaps, unsafe to 
 argue from these similarities ; for clearly the 
 life of the Golden Age or the Golden Race 
 had certain fixed and traditional characteristics 
 which any poet who dealt with it must include 
 in his picture. It seems fairl)^ probable, but 
 not certain, that Virgil is definitely and de- 
 liberately answering Horace. His poem is in 
 effect an answer to Horace, and the suggestion 
 is instructive, because it calls attention to a 
 difference in the careers of the two great
 
 126 LECTURES ON CLASSICAL SUBJECTS 
 
 poets of the Augustan age. Horace, who had 
 fought at Philippi, was later and slower in 
 reconciling himself to the new order of 
 things. He was for long reserved and reluc- 
 tant in his commendation of the new ruler of 
 Rome. 
 
 The Fourth Eclogue must remain a some- 
 what mysterious, if impressive and beautiful, 
 poem. The clue to its precise meaning seems 
 to be lost. The difficulty of identifying the 
 child is so great that we are almost driven 
 to suppose that Virgil had no particular child 
 in view, and was speaking of an imaginary 
 representative of the new and happier genera- 
 tion. But no doubt there are phrases in the 
 poem which it is rather difficult to interpret 
 on this supposition, and which have the air 
 of being uttered about a child of special 
 promise and distinction. 
 
 Criticism of the poem has sometimes taken 
 erroneous paths. One mistake which we must 
 guard against is that of taking it too seriously 
 and of looking for a deeper or more exact 
 meaning in it than the poet intended to con- 
 vey. Much of it may be merely fanciful, a 
 graceful experiment in a particular vein of
 
 THE AGE OF GOLD 127 
 
 composition, like some of the other Eclogues. 
 Another mistake, or perhaps rather a false 
 impression conveyed unintentionally by the 
 critic, lies in regarding the poem as accounted 
 for by the precedents which can be found and 
 as made up of suggestions from Hesiod or 
 Aratus or Catullus. Virgil's work can almost 
 always be analysed in this way, and almost 
 always the analysis misrepresents it : it is full 
 of echoes from the past, and yet it is at the 
 same time a new thing. Virgil transmuted 
 what he touched, as he has done in this 
 eclogue. Old memories and fancies of an age 
 of gold he has woven into a new Italian 
 idyll, a vision of Italy as it might be under 
 happier conditions. In this respect, though 
 there are many points of divergence, the 
 eclogue resembles Shelley's poem on the 
 regeneration of Greece, which would be treated 
 with equal injustice if it were resolved into 
 the classical ideas or allusions which appear 
 in it. Both poems have in some degree the 
 vagueness or obscurity which belongs to a 
 prophetic vision : the seer is trying to read 
 the story of a strange future, and has no 
 language in which to express it save the ideas
 
 128 LECTURES ON CLASSICAL SUBJECTS 
 
 and traditions of the past, which are of 
 necessity inadequate. It would be as idle to 
 try to identify Shelley's ' loftier Argo ' and 
 ' new Ulysses,' as it is to rationalise with 
 prosaic literalness the dream of Virgil. 
 
 After Virgil — we need not say ' in Virgil,' 
 nor need we condemn him for setting the 
 fashion — the vision of a Golden Age became 
 a form of flattery addressed to a new Emperor. 
 In the Eclogues of Calpurnius, Nero is hailed 
 as the founder of a new age of Saturn and 
 of Numa — 
 
 ' Plena quies aderit, quae stricti nescia ferri 
 Altera Saturni referet Latialia regna, 
 Altera regna Numae.'^ 
 
 Nero bitterly disappointed such hopes, though 
 his first five years, the ' quinquennium Neronis,' 
 were a time of happiness and prosperity. 
 Augustus attained to power through much 
 callous bloodshed, and he established a virtual 
 despotism in a free state ; but, on the whole, 
 if we weigh justly his great services and 
 achievements, he may fairly be said to have 
 brought about at Rome an Age of Gold — not 
 in the sense of the poetic vision, but at all 
 iCalp., Ed. I. 63 f. 
 
 I
 
 THE AGE OF GOLD 129 
 
 events an age which was golden by contrast 
 with the age of iron, of disorder, and of civil 
 war, which immediately preceded it. 
 
 NOTE. 
 
 When I wrote this lecture, in the autumn of 1901, 
 I had not seen a very interesting book, published in 
 that year, Prof Franz Skutsch's Aus Vergil's Friihzeit. 
 If it is true that the Ciris is the work of Cornelius 
 Gallus, the o-TrovSeta^wi' ' cara deum suloles, magnum 
 lovis incrementum ' was not merely due to the 
 influence of the ' cantores Euphorionis,' but was 
 actually borrowed, with very slight variation, from the 
 'cantor Euphorionis,' Gallus, Virgil's elder contem- 
 porary, who forms a link beween the preceding 
 generation of poets and the Augustans. 
 
 Dr. Skutsch discusses the Fourth Eclogue in an 
 excursus (p. 148 f). He argues against the claim of 
 Asinius Gallus, laying stress on the mention of Pollio's 
 consulship and the absence of any hint that he stands 
 in a closer relationship to the child : and pointing 
 out that though it is certain that Asconius was told 
 by Gallus that he, Gallus, was the child in question, 
 it is by no means certain that Asconius thought the 
 claim valid (p. 151)- I am now disposed to think 
 that Gallus' claim may be dismissed as one of his 
 efforts to pose as a possible successor to the 
 Principate (Augustus in discussing claimants had 
 pronounced him '■ avidum et mtnore?n,' Tac. Ann., i. 
 xiii.). And, in view of Dr. Skutsch's arguments, I 
 am also inclined to accede to the view that the child 
 
 I
 
 I30 LECTURES ON CLASSICAL SUBJECTS 
 
 was probably the expected child of Octavian and 
 Scribonia. (The child is not yet born. In rightly 
 arguing that the whole poem to its close precedes 
 the child's birth, and quoting ' casta fave Lucina,' 
 p. 158, the writer raises a doubt about his knowledge of 
 elementary prosody by seeming to suggest that Virgil 
 might have written ' casta favit Lucina' !) The main 
 argument lies in the position of Octavian, which even by 
 40 B.C. was, I admit, one of such eminence as to make 
 it unlikely that what is said in the Eclogue could be 
 said of any child but his. The allusion to Apollo, 
 it is contended, points to the same conclusion (1. 10, 
 tuns iani regnat Apollo — Octavian regarded Apollo as 
 his special protector, from a quite early period in 
 his life). Dr. Skutsch also points out that Martial 
 published an epigram, similar in theme and language 
 to the Fourth Eclogue, although the hope which it 
 expressed was never fulfilled (vi. iii.) : and that it 
 would not be in Virgil's power to retract the poem, 
 when it had once been presented to Octavian and 
 had become known to his friends (quoting Statius, 
 Silvae, iv. Praef. : lam domino Caesari dederam et 
 quanto hoc phis est qiiam edere). 
 
 It is a simple but perhaps not unimportant con- 
 sideration that in a case like this a Roman poet was 
 confronted by a merely grammatical or linguistic 
 difficulty. There was no ambiguous word like ' child ' 
 or a neuter like tekvov. He could say only ' puer ' 
 (as Statius does in his Epithalamium, Silvae, i. ii.) : 
 ' puer ' would therefore be understood, we may suppose, 
 as meaning either ' puer ' or ' puella ' : but if this was 
 so, the poem would not be rendered ludicrous by the 
 birth of a girl. There is moreover a possibility that
 
 THE AGE OF GOLD 
 
 after the event Virgil 'licked' his poem into a 
 slightly different shape — he is credited with saying 
 'parere se versus more atque ritu ursino '— and made 
 it rather more ideal and symbolical than it had been 
 at first.
 
 V. 
 
 THE VEIN OF ROMANCE IN GREEK 
 AND ROMAN LITERATURE.^ 
 
 Callimachi numeris non est dicendus Achilles : 
 Cydippe non est oris, Homere, tui. 
 
 —Ovid. 
 
 Scarcely any inquiry regarding classical poetry 
 can be entered upon without some reference to 
 the poems of Homer. They meet us at the 
 outset, at the very threshold of Greek literary 
 history, and they dominated and influenced its 
 future course to a singular extent. And yet they 
 are hardly in connection with it. They stand in 
 stranee isolation, like an island near a continent. 
 
 lA Lecture delivered to the Edinburgh University Celtic 
 Society, October, 1895. I am, of course, largely indebted to 
 Rohde's book, Der griechische Roman. What is said of Stesi- 
 chorus' Oresteia corcies from C. Robert's Bild und Lied. 
 Konrad of Wurtzburg is known to me only through E. H. 
 Mever's Homer und die llias.
 
 THE VEIN OF ROMANCE 133 
 
 Nothing that preceded them has survived, and 
 after them there is a gap, a chasm — we come 
 to sheer cliff and sundering waters on the other 
 side of our island too. It is on the whole a 
 Greek island, a world bearing distinct traces of 
 affinity with the Greece we know. But how 
 different in many ways, and, above all, how 
 wide and varied in its contents, how much a 
 microcosm of human life generally, how universal 
 and ideal in the scenes it presents to us ! Hardly 
 any side of human life is unrepresented there. 
 There is hardly any note or cadence struck 
 by later poets that does not somewhere or some- 
 how sound for us on the strings of Homer's 
 lyre. So that even if we are looking for 
 ' romance ' — a thing so unhellenic in many ways 
 — we must expect to find something in Homer. 
 And in one sense of the word ' romance,' that 
 of strange and perilous adventure in distant 
 lands, we find it very clearly in the Odyssey. 
 The huge one-eyed giant whom Odysseus 
 blinded and outwitted, the savage Laestrygones, 
 the seething waters of Charybdis — these are 
 things which stand almost alone in Greek 
 Literature : they are the literary romance 
 which is developed out of fairy tales of the
 
 134 LECTURES ON CLASSICAL SUBJECTS 
 
 people — that popular, minor mythology which 
 so rarely came to the surface in the literature 
 of Greece. Scylla and Charybdis are Scandi- 
 navian rather than Greek: they recall the 
 Kraken and the Maelstrom and the other 
 marvels of the Northern Sea. It would be 
 interesting to inquire here whether, besides 
 what is Teutonic or Scandinavian, there is 
 anything in Homer that shows affinity with 
 the Celtic imagination. Matthew Arnold was no 
 doubt right in tracing to the Celts a sense for 
 the magic and mystery of Nature, a spirit that 
 is at home in mist and storm and amid wild 
 mountains, and that has strange glimpses of the 
 unearthly and supernatural. In Homer, we 
 must reply, there is little or nothing of this. 
 Perhaps the most Celtic passage in Homer is 
 that wonderful vision of Theoclymenus in the 
 Odyssey (xx. 350 f.), where the seer beholds 
 the impending fate of the suitors approaching, 
 the shadow of death clouding the joys of the 
 feast. 
 
 But both the Scandinavian and the Celtic 
 things in Homer are quite exceptional. The 
 poet is on the whole a typical Greek. He moves 
 in the light of common day : he is prosaic,
 
 THE VEIN OF ROMANCE 135 
 
 practical, he sees things as they are, undistorted 
 — or unglorified — by the rainbow colours of 
 imagination ; and even the gods themselves 
 appear on the stage without impressing us with 
 any feeling of mystery or marvel. Altogether, 
 we might almost set out on our quest for the 
 romantic by defining it as the unhomeric. So far 
 as the passion of love forms a part of romance, 
 we must recognise Homer's extreme restraint 
 and reticence upon that theme, even where his 
 story gave opportunities for it, as in the histories 
 of Calypso or Nausicaa. 
 
 Greek Literature seems to have developed 
 itself in a very natural and simple way. Poetry 
 passed through three great periods : the Epic, 
 Lyric, and Dramatic. It is not altogether fanci- 
 ful to describe these three stages or periods as 
 those of boyhood, youth, and manhood. First 
 comes the boy's delight in adventure and heroic 
 deeds, next the emotional and introspective fer- 
 vour of adolescence, finally a restoration of vigour 
 and delight in action— but with a difference — 
 in manhood. So we may say that in Homer 
 we have the poetry of the Outer Life, in the 
 Lyric poets that of the Inner Life of emotion 
 and thought, in the Drama a combination of
 
 136 LECTURES ON CLASSICAL SUBJECTS 
 
 the two, where action is seen in its relation to 
 inward motive and character. We need not 
 inquire whether the life of a nation always and 
 of necessity passes through the same phases as 
 that of an individual. There is certainly an 
 analogy in the particular case of Greece : and 
 more generally, it may be remarked, that litera- 
 ture and life form an ideal world in which man 
 lives his life over again, and that naturally what 
 is most easily reproduced appears in this new 
 world first. It is easy to tell a straightforward 
 story : not very difficult to say, ' I love,' or ' I 
 hate ' : but much harder to delineate human life 
 as a whole, the conflict of character and circum- 
 stance, with full insight. 
 
 We should expect to find some movement 
 towards romance in the fervid period of adol- 
 escence — the seventh and sixth centuries — which 
 intervenes between the Epos and the Drama. 
 And such a tendency there is. I do not think 
 that we can really include the poems of Sappho 
 under this head. The white heat and glow of real 
 passion, the expression of what one feels at the 
 moment one's self — this is hardly what is meant 
 by ' romance ' strictly. It is too direct and 
 simple, too completely free from fancy, senti-
 
 THE VEIN OF ROMANCE 137 
 
 ment, and second thoughts. ' Romance ' results 
 rather when we sympathise with the emotions 
 of a hero or heroine of story — when the emotions 
 are not the actual ones of the moment, not those 
 we are ourselves feeling intensely, but at most 
 our own feelings projected, as it were, into a 
 remote region, idealised and reproduced in new 
 conditions. In romance we are, to a certain 
 extent, outside of our own emotions — thinking 
 about them, making much of them, looking at 
 them. Sappho and Alcaeus were too much 
 absorbed in their own feelings — too rarely getting 
 outside of tliem in this way — to be classed as 
 ' romantic' 
 
 What we are looking for appears in other 
 writers of that age. Hesiod, or some poet of 
 Hesiod's school, composed an epic with a title 
 answering to ' The Legende of Fair Women.' 
 The Greeks did not give play to their fancy in 
 the names of books, and it was called only 
 ' '^aToKo'yo'i TwaiKoov.' But it related stories 
 which we should be disposed to call romantic. 
 Such, for example, was that of Apollo and 
 Coronis. Coronis was a fair maiden of Thessaly, 
 who was one day sitting on the bank of the 
 Boebean lake, dipping her foot in its waters.
 
 138 LECTURES ON CLASSICAL SUBJECTS 
 
 Apollo saw her and fell under the spell of her 
 beauty. She became the bride of the Delphian 
 god. But the story had a darker sequel. 
 Coronis forgot her divine lover, and gave her 
 hand to an Arcadian stranger. Her punishment 
 was death, and vengeance fell also upon Apollo's 
 messenger, the Raven, who had reported her 
 faithlessness. Hitherto the bird's plumage had been 
 of the purest white, ' vying with the swan, with 
 milk, with the foam of the crested wave ' ; after 
 this rash, but no doubt well-meant, intervention 
 in the love affairs of his master, the raven was 
 doomed to wear feathers black as pitch — a 
 penalty which Athena had previously inflicted 
 upon the Crow for a similar indiscretion.^ 
 
 Here we may pause to note, as in the matter 
 of the Cyclops and Char3^bdis, that what is 
 
 ^ •^ vh^ ^ ^vdios T] icrer' tiCjs 
 edre /copaf, 6s vvi> ye Kal ay KVKvoicrip ipii'oi 
 Kal ydXaKL xpotTjv /cat Kv/naros dKpq) ddirip 
 Kvdviov (pT) iriacrav ewl Trrepbv ovXoof ecrcrei 
 dyyeXLrjs ewixeipa to, o'l wore ^otjSos ovda-crei. 
 
 — Callimachus, Hecale, Fr. 
 
 Callimachus no doubt derived his information from Hesiod (cf 
 Eoearum fragmenta, 143, ed. Kinkel), a poet who was prized — 
 perhaps too highly — at Alexandria. Another long ' fragment ' of 
 the Ilecale — preserved in a very fragmentary condition — relates 
 the misdeeds of the Crow.
 
 THE VEIN OF ROMANCE 139 
 
 romantic in classical literature is associated with, 
 if not identical with, popular legend, the tales told 
 by the common people, the fanciful fairy tales 
 of local belief. Transformations — magical changes 
 of shape and colour — play a large part in this 
 minor mythology, and, to cast a glance for a 
 moment into the remote future, these stories were 
 collected by Alexandrian writers, and adopted 
 from them by Ovid. The curious and often 
 romantic stories of the ' Metamorphoses ' exer- 
 cised not a little influence on the imagination 
 of medieval writers, and upon the beginnings 
 of modern literature. 
 
 In the lyric age of Greece the poet who has 
 the strongest claim to be thought ' romantic ' 
 is Stesichorus of Himera, the choric poet of 
 Sicily. Tradition associated him with Hesiod, 
 even making him a son of the Boeotian minstrel. 
 At all events he did two things which were 
 not without influence and importance for Greek 
 literary history. He told in verse several 
 romantic stories. The tale of Kalyke was very 
 simple : that of a maiden who was spurned by 
 the object of her love, Euathlos, and who threw 
 herself in despair from the Leucadian cliff. In 
 the story of Rhadina we have more complicated
 
 I40 LECTURES ON CLASSICAL SUBJECTS 
 
 incident. Rhadina, the destined bride of the 
 Tyrant of Corinth, sailed from Samos to that 
 city. The same wind brought her brother, who 
 was on his way to Delphi as the leader of a 
 Oeo)pia or sacred embassy. Her cousin, who was 
 in love with her, came on a chariot to Corinth. 
 The Tyrant killed them both and sent away 
 their bodies on a chariot : but afterwards re- 
 pented and gave them burial. Here we have 
 two tales of unhappy love, and of ordinary 
 lovers in private life, not of gods or heroes. 
 Stesichorus also introduced into Greek literature 
 the figure of Daphnis, and here we touch upon 
 another and not unromantic vein of literature, 
 which it would be interesting to trace if time 
 allowed — Idyllic or Pastoral poetry. Daphnis 
 was beloved by a nymph, but he broke faith 
 with her and wedded the daughter of a king : 
 whereupon the nymph blinded him and brought 
 him to a miserable death. 
 
 Besides relating these stories Stesichorus did 
 much to reshape and modify the old heroic 
 legends — to recast them in a more romantic 
 form, adding new and startling incidents, intro- 
 ducing new scenes of emotion, and developing 
 the characters of the women who played a
 
 THE VEIN OF ROMANCE 141 
 
 part in them. Homer does not seem to have 
 thought of Orestes as killing his mother, Cly- 
 taemnestra. Aegisthus is the arch-offender with 
 him, and Orestes only ' gains great glory by 
 slaying his father's murderer.' Stesichorus 
 developed the character of Clytaemnestra. She, 
 and not Aegisthus, became the ringleader in 
 the plot against Agamemnon : she cut down 
 her husband with her own hand, thus provoking 
 and deserving her death at her son's hands. 
 And when Orestes came back, in manhood, 
 to take vengeance on Aegisthus, Clytaemnestra 
 swung above his head the sa))ie axe with which 
 Agamemnon had been slain years before. Her 
 hand was arrested by the aged herald Talthy- 
 bius. The strange dream of Clytaemnestra,^ of 
 the snake which she bore, and which drew 
 blood from her breast, was the work of Stesi- 
 chorus ; as was also the pathetic meeting of 
 Electra and Orestes, sister and brother, at their 
 
 ^ Tq. 5^ SpaKuv iodKTjcrev /jLoXeTv Kapa ^e^poTCc/j.^fos dKpov, 
 €K 5' dpa Tov ^aaiXevs n\€L<x0evldai icpdvy). 
 C. Robert argues plausibly that in Stesichorus Clytaemnestra's 
 dream was more complicated than Aeschylus made it, and that 
 ' Plisthenidas ' means Agamemnon, wounded on the head by the 
 axe. Both father and son appear in the dream. Sophocles 
 substituted for this dream a less startling one borrowed from 
 Herodotus.
 
 142 LECTURES ON CLASSICAL SUBJECTS 
 
 murdered father's tomb. The lyric ' Oresteia ' of 
 Stesichorus is lost, but these features of the 
 story as told by him can be made out, from 
 various pieces of evidence, with something like 
 certainty. 
 
 Here we may pause again to make another 
 remark. Romance is naturally associated with 
 women and their emotions — if it is concerned 
 with the inner life of feeling it must inevitably 
 deal with the sex which is less actively engaged 
 in the work and business of the world. Now 
 the Greek States differed very much in their 
 treatment of women. Among the lonians and 
 Athenians women lived in seclusion, enjoyed 
 little freedom, and had few opportunities of 
 education. The Homeric poems are substantially 
 the work of lonians. Greek tragedy is Athenian. 
 Neither in Homer nor the Drama is there a 
 romantic tone. The state of things was different 
 among the Dorians and Aeolians. It is among 
 them and not among lonians that romance 
 is to be looked for. Stesichorus was a Dorian 
 poet. 
 
 In the fifth century B.C. Athens came to the 
 front. Athenian ideas and Athenian culture 
 prevailed. Sophocles and Phidias took the
 
 THE VEIN OF ROMANCE 143 
 
 lead in literary and in plastic art. And Athenian 
 civilization was adverse to the claims of women, 
 and adverse to romance. So far as Attic 
 tragedy makes much of female characters, it 
 is because earlier poets like Stesichorus had set 
 the example, and because the free and simple 
 air of the Homeric world is still largely the 
 atmosphere in which the personages of tragedy 
 move. It was only when the power of Athens 
 began to decline, when the Athenian empire 
 was beginning to fall to pieces, that tragedy 
 took a more romantic turn, that attention was 
 turned away from the deeds of great national 
 heroes, and conflicts of moral and political 
 duties or ideas : and turned towards the 
 emotions and passions of an individual soul, 
 the trials and temptations of personal or private 
 life. It was in Euripides that this tendency 
 first manifested itself, and there are indications 
 that his treatment of Love in particular found 
 many imitators among the later tragic poets. 
 ' Time would fail me,' says Ovid, ' if I were 
 to enumerate the love-stories of tragedy : tragedy, 
 too, makes love its constant theme.' ^ Perhaps 
 
 1 'Tempore deficiar, tragicos si persequar ignes : 
 haec quoque materiem semper amoris habel.'
 
 144 LECTURES ON CLASSICAL SUBJECTS 
 
 this is an exaggeration. We must not make 
 too much of Euripides as a romanticist. Stories 
 Hke those of Phaedra are hardly romantic. 
 Love is still thought of as a sort of phrenzy or 
 pestilence sent by an angry deity, Qe-)]KaTov voa-mxa. 
 But certainly Euripides has a large measure of 
 what we may call romance. In him love and 
 other emotions are made much of, and become 
 an object of reflection, sentiment, and fancy, 
 instead of being directly and simply expressed 
 as they had been by Sappho, or, on a lower 
 level and in a more sensual way, by Mimnermus. 
 
 A contemporary of Euripides is of some 
 importance for our inquiry. He is a poet of 
 whom only a ie.w lines have been preserved, 
 but he enjoyed a great reputation in the 
 ancient world, and he numbered among his 
 fervent admirers no less a personage than Plato. 
 The poet is Antimachus of Colophon. His 
 largest work was a Thebais — an epic on the 
 story of the sons of Oedipus and the siege of 
 Thebes. We are told that he had come to his 
 Twenty-fourth book without having yet brought 
 the invading force up to the walls of the town ! 
 Perhaps therefore we need not greatly regret 
 the loss of this work : certainly it seems to
 
 THE VEIN OF ROMANCE i6i 
 
 ition which will strike the two types of mind 
 very differently. The one would describe it 
 as leaving the heat and glare of a lighted 
 theatre for the cool air and the quiet stars. 
 The other will think of it as coming down 
 from the heights of heaven to the dull routine 
 of earthly existence and the hard daylight of 
 ordinary life. To those who have felt the 
 fervour of a later age, the classical art will 
 always seem a little cold, a little formal and 
 rigid. But tranquillity, soundness of mind, 
 and clearness of vision are great qualities, 
 and they make the best classical art and 
 life a thing to which we must always recur 
 to correct what is feverish, erratic, or over- 
 strained in romantic thought and art.
 
 VI. 
 THE LANGUAGE OF POETRY.^ 
 
 ci)s elffTjXOe yap, 
 evdvs fi^ eTTrjpdiTTjffe Trpocr/SX^^as fxeya 
 ' irdcrovs KiKXrjKas fiipoircis (ttI Beirrpov ; Xiye. ' 
 ' iyw K^KXrjKa /J-epoiras eTri SeLirvov ; x^^^^- 
 Tovs de fi^poiras tovtovs fj.e yivdjcTKeiv 8oKeis ; 
 ovdels TTCLpeaTai. tovto yap vt} tov Ala 
 earl KaToXonrov, fi^powas iirl osIttvov KaXecv ! ' 
 
 — (Strato, apud Athen. ix. p. 383.) 
 
 Cicero in the De Oratore makes the old 
 Roman orator Antonius say that he Hmits his 
 reading to orators and historians whom he can 
 understand : the poets he avoids altogether, as 
 'speaking in what is really a different language.'^ 
 No one can read much serious poetry without 
 observing that what is here said of poets is 
 
 ^ A lecture delivered to the Classical Society of Glasgow 
 University, January nth, 1903. 
 
 ^ Poetas omnino quasi alia quadam lingua locutos non conor 
 attingere. De Orat. ii. 61.
 
 THE LANGUAGE OF POETRY 163 
 
 true in a quite literal sense. They do speak a 
 different language. Neither their words, nor 
 their ways of putting things, nor their con- 
 structions are the same as those of prose-writers. 
 Let us illustrate this by a simple example in 
 Latin. The line of Tennyson ' and thinking of 
 the days that are no more ' is neatly turned into 
 Latin in a version by Sir Richard Jebb ; the 
 words are ' et lapsos revoco sub pectore soles.' 
 Consider how the same thought would be 
 expressed in Latin prose. We should find our- 
 selves saying something like this: ' subit animum 
 praeteriti temporis recordatio ' or ' memoria.' 
 The two renderings, in verse and in prose, have 
 not a word — not a single word — in common. 
 The original words of Tennyson are extremely 
 simple : we can hardly say that they differ from 
 the vocabulary of prose, except perhaps that ' are 
 no more ' is a slightly poetic way of saying 
 ' are past' The Latin words would certainly 
 not be used by a Roman prose-writer to express 
 that thought : but they are words which viay be 
 used in prose, they are not excluded from the 
 language of prose altogether. Recall now some 
 obvious facts about the language of great poets, 
 how the Attic tragedians, for example, use c^o'/xo?
 
 i64 LECTURES ON CLASSICAL SUBJECTS 
 
 or ^(o/xa for ' house ' and oKk^ for strength, where 
 a prose-writer would say olKia and piiiixr] or tV^f9 
 respectively. Here we seem to have a further 
 step in the direction of a poetic language. For 
 ^ojj.o'i and oKKy'i are words which an Attic prose- 
 writer does not normally use at all. It would 
 be premature at this stage in the inquiry to 
 place the three languages in an ascending or 
 descending scale and to say that Greek has the 
 largest poetic vocabulary, and English the 
 smallest, while Latin stands between them. But 
 it is at least clear that different languages and 
 literatures may differ very widely in this respect. 
 It is clear also that poets have very often 
 spoken ' in quite another tongue.' We are led 
 to ask, ' Why should they ? ' and we hear voices 
 saying more clamorously, ' Why, indeed ? The 
 practice is absurd, and poets should discard it 
 once for all.' Such a protest was made by 
 Wordsworth in his celebrated Preface. But 
 Wordsworth was not the first to make it. 
 Like many modern things, it has a precedent 
 in Greece. The same voice speaks in a passage 
 of the comic poet Antiphanes which has been 
 preserved for us. There are two speakers : one 
 of them proposes various turgid and circuitous
 
 THE LANGUAGE OF POETRY 165 
 
 phrases for things, and the other objects to 
 them. The first thing to be dealt with is a 
 pot or pitcher : 
 
 A. When I wish to name a pitcher, shall I simply 'pitcher' 
 
 say, 
 or 'the hollow vessel moulded by the potter's flying 
 
 wheel, 
 earthen, baked in earthen furnace, earth the mother, 
 
 earth the child ' ? 
 
 Then follows a similar picturesque periphrasis 
 for the meat in the pot, and the other speaker 
 says that this sort of thing will be the death of 
 him — he wants only the intelligible phrase, ' a 
 pot of meat.' The first speaker now proceeds 
 to adumbrate the idea of a ' cake ' in some four 
 lines of pompous phraseology. Then we have 
 a few shorter examples : 
 
 A. Draught from Bacchic fount exuded ? B. Cut it down 
 
 to one word, 'wine.' 
 A. Dewy rills beloved of Naiads ? B. ' Water ' were a 
 
 simpler term. 
 A. Araby's soft airy fragrance ? B. Please say ' myrrh ' 
 
 and nothing more.^ 
 
 ^ A. ■jr6rep' ^rav /xAXw X^yeiv croL ttju xi'rpac, x'^P°-^ Xeyw, 
 ?j TpoxoO pv/MaiffL revKTbv KoiXocrJifiaTov kvtos 
 irXacrrbv iK yalas, iv dWrj fxijrpbs oiTT-qdev ffTiyrj ; 
 
 A. ^pofjuddos d' idpuira Trrjyrji ; B. oIj'OJ' eiire avvreiiijv. 
 
 A. Xt;3d5a vv/xcpalav 5pocrui5r] ; B. TrapaKnruiv vdwp (pddi. 
 
 A. Ka(Ti.6irvQvv 5' avpav 5i' aWpa's ; B. afxiipvav eliri, /jltj fxaKpav.
 
 i66 LECTURES ON CLASSICAL SUBJECTS 
 
 A similar parody of poetic language occurs in 
 an English writer who was earlier than Words- 
 worth. It is in Swift's Art of Sinking in 
 Poetry, and what he gives us is the dithyram- 
 bic language for ' Draw the cork of the bottle, 
 and cut the bread ' : 
 
 Apply the engine to the spongy door, 
 Set Bacchus from his glassy prison free 
 And strip white Ceres of her nutbrown coat. 
 
 I have called this dithyrambic language, be- 
 cause turgidity of this kind seems to have been 
 specially frequent in a form of ancient poetry 
 which is not very well known to us, but which 
 Antiphanes probably had in view — the dithy- 
 ramb or choric song in honour of Dionysus. 
 Greek tragedy, it is well known, was in its 
 origin closely associated with the dithyramb, 
 and it is curious that among the very scanty 
 fragments of tragedy prior to Aeschylus we find 
 traces of this vein of language. Choerilus is 
 said to have called rivers the ' veins of the 
 earth' and rocks the earth's ' bones.' ^ Aeschylus 
 in a well-known passage speaks of the Aegean 
 Sea as ' blossoming ' or ' aflower ' with dead 
 bodies after a storm :- and in the Persae, per- 
 
 ^ -yrjs (f>\€J3€i, yrjs oara. " dvdovv TrfKoLyoi Kiyaiov veKpots.
 
 THE LANGUAGE OF POETRY 167 
 
 haps with an intentional suggestion of Oriental 
 
 grandiloquence, he calls fishes the ' voiceless 
 
 children of the unpolluted one,' that is, of the 
 
 sea.^ From this point of view we may regard 
 
 Greek tragedy as gradually emerging from the 
 
 influence of the dithyramb and shaking itself free 
 
 from the temptation to turgidity. In Euripides, 
 
 apart from choric passages, the language is 
 
 usually very plain and simple, and this is 
 
 naturally accompanied by a change in the verse. 
 
 The senarius becomes less strict and regular, 
 
 admitting resolution more frequently. No doubt 
 
 the change belonged to the tendencies of 
 
 Euripides' time. But we must give him some 
 
 credit for originality. Aristotle expressly says 
 
 that he was an innovator in this respect, and 
 
 first showed poets how to use quite ordinary 
 
 words in an effective way.^ Before taking leave 
 
 of the dithyramb, we may notice a curious fact 
 
 about turgid language of this type. It seems 
 
 to be common to the most ambitious poetry 
 
 and to the speech of the common people. 
 
 Hesiod, writing for Boeotian peasants, designates 
 
 a snail as ' the house-carrier, the boneless one,' 
 
 ^ 6.va.vhoi TralSes ras d/j.idi'Tov. 
 
 ^vTT^Sei^e TrpwTos, H/ieL iii., p. 1404 b 25.
 
 i68 LECTURES ON CLASSICAL SUBJECTS 
 
 cf)€peoiK09 av6crr€09, very much as in modern 
 slang a dried haddock becomes an ' Atlantic 
 ranger,' or a ' Two-eyed steak.' What is the 
 explanation of this coincidence? Is it that the 
 common man rather likes to feel that he is 
 cleverer than his hearer, and is giving him 
 something to think about or decipher ? and that 
 on a higher plane and in a different way the 
 poet is tempted to be a little oracular ? ^ 
 
 This preliminary survey of the ground has led 
 us rather through some bye-ways of literary 
 history than towards a theory or explanation of 
 the central fact. Why have poets so often 
 spoken in a language of their own ? As soon 
 
 ■'A good illustration of what ' dithyrambic ' meant to a Greek 
 critic is to be found in a scholion on Od. ix. 43 : 
 
 ^v9' iJTOL fM^v e7u) Stepip Trodl (pevye/xev 7]fj.^as 
 
 rjvuyea. 
 diepip TTodi, 'wet foot,' was by some taken to mean a ship: the 
 interpretation is rejected as didvpa/iipuides. The extant fragments 
 of Timotheus and Philoxenus show some affinity with the passage 
 in Antiphanes. The former in his ' Cyclops ' wrote : 
 
 ^fxiayi 6' 
 
 atfia /3a/f%ioii veoppvTois SaKpvoicri vv/j.(pdf. 
 ( = mixed the wine with water). He was a writer of 'Nd/xoi, a 
 form of lyric composition akin to the dithyramb. In his Fcrsae 
 the language is as a rule simple, but there are some good specimens 
 of ' dithyrambic ' phrase. Oars are 6peioi ir68es vabs, the sea 
 TrXSifxa Tredia, salt water d^axX'"7-os Sfx^pos, the throat or gullet 
 rpocpi/jLOv &770S.
 
 THE LANGUAGE OF POETRY 169 
 
 as we have asked the question, we begin to see 
 its difficulty, for it is nothing less than an 
 inquiry into the nature of poetry. What is 
 poetry that it should be justified in doing this ? 
 And if we could answer that question we should 
 probably find that we had explained at the same 
 time why poetry has almost universally employed 
 metre : for metre, or regularly recurrent rhythm, 
 is another conspicuous deviation from ordinary 
 speech. Even if we were prepared to say that 
 the metrical form of poetry and its peculiar 
 language were antiquated things which poets 
 should now reject, we should not have escaped 
 from our problem : for we should still have to 
 explain why they have prevailed in the past. 
 What has been done so often, by so many poets 
 in different ages and countries, cannot be a mere 
 accident or eccentricity ; it must have some basis 
 or justification in the very nature of poetry. 
 Without attempting to answer the question 
 ' what is poetry,' we may try to grope around 
 it and to recall some of the things which have 
 been said about it, in the hope of finding some 
 such justification for its outward form, and for 
 the mechanism of expression which in most of its 
 forms it still continues to use.
 
 I70 LECTURES ON CLASSICAL SUBJECTS 
 
 Poetry is a {xiixy](n^, Aristotle says, and gives 
 us TO. KaOoXov, not TO. KaO' eKaa-ra, the general or 
 universal, not the particular. How are we to 
 understand this? The great poet, we may say, 
 is a man of finer and more sensitive nature, of 
 wider outlook and more subtle sympathy : he 
 re-interprets the world for his more obtuse 
 fellow-men : he sees aspects of things that are 
 hid from the common-place observer, he perceives 
 the real and vital issues, he ignores the unessen- 
 tial or the trivial : he ignores the small eKaa-ra, 
 except in so far as they can be made the symbols 
 or the vehicles of great emotions or great 
 thoughts. He does not give us a photograph of 
 the minutiae of life : he selects and re-combines 
 small things so that they make a significant 
 whole and suggest deeper meanings. He takes 
 us into an ideal world, which is not less real 
 than the trivial and actual one : rather more so, 
 for it is not constructed fancifully out of nothing, 
 but made up of the deeper and more vital 
 features of our real life. People are apt to 
 forget that the world of poetry is a different 
 world, with a different set of conditions : they 
 say ' nobody talks in metre : a conversation in 
 senarii is unlike life, unreal and untrue.' No
 
 THE LANGUAGE OF POETRY 171 
 
 doubt it is. But the poet's business is not to 
 repeat experience. There would be no instruc- 
 tiveness in that. His business is to recast it, so 
 that we see some of its deeper meanings, and in so 
 doing he creates a new and ideal world. In that 
 world why should metre be unnatural ? Rather, 
 an exalted and subtle form of language, more 
 symmetrical and beautiful, is in keeping with such 
 an environment and inevitable there. Why single 
 out for criticism the metrical form of a con- 
 versation as specially unreal ? We are far re- 
 moved from reality in the strict and literal sense 
 already, when the events of days, or it may be 
 weeks and months, are presented to us in a few 
 hours on the stage. Art is not nature, and, what 
 is still more often forgotten, does not even aim 
 at being mistaken for nature. Were it not so, 
 the photograph, the phonograph, the cinemato- 
 graph would be the highest forms of art, and 
 might supersede the works of art once for all. 
 
 Our argument here leads us to consider some 
 of the other arts, /a/^c?/cret? which do not use 
 language, but colour, or form, or sound. A 
 battle, let us suppose, is to be delineated. No 
 doubt the cinematograph could give us a very 
 exact reproduction of it in one way, or rather
 
 172 LECTURES ON CLASSICAL SUBJECTS 
 
 a reproduction of a part of it, the transient 
 aspect which is presented to the eye alone. But 
 the shock of onset, the strain and suspense of 
 the conflict, the exultation of victory, could also 
 be represented by music, and perhaps this re- 
 presentation would be the more effective and 
 more stimulating of the two : but it would not 
 be like the battle : it would, in a literal sense, 
 have no resemblance to it at all : no such musi- 
 cal sounds or notes were heard on the actual 
 field. Consider again how easily and how com- 
 pletely some side or aspect of reality can be 
 ignored. A landscape, in the reality full of 
 varied colour, may be presented by an etching 
 or an engraving in black and white. In sculp- 
 ture again, in modern times, we have solid form 
 without colour. There is no sense of incom- 
 pleteness : we do not want anything more — we 
 should have to go to a waxwork exhibition to 
 find anything which could be mistaken for the 
 reality. The artist's aim is not to delude the 
 spectator into thinking that he has the reality 
 before him : what he does is to use some medium 
 or material in such a way as to stimulate the 
 spectator's feeling or imagination, and so reveal 
 to him some of the vital features of the object,
 
 THE LANGUAGE OF POETRY 173 
 
 TO. KaOoXov in Aristotle's sense : and what we 
 can reasonably exact of him is that having chosen 
 his material or method, he shall keep to that 
 and not deviate suddenly into some different 
 sort of niijurjcrig. Obviously, in different arts there 
 is a different degree of outward and superficial 
 resemblance to the object imitated : in music 
 very little, in painting much more. Suppose 
 that in the Laocoon group the snakes alone 
 were coloured, that they appeared in the splendour 
 of green and golden scales, while Laocoon and 
 his sons were of plain marble : clearly the result 
 would be incongruous and displeasing. There 
 is one form of modern dramatic art which I am 
 inclined to think is open to criticism on this 
 score, the opera. Scenery, and actors appro- 
 priately dressed, belong to a certain grade of 
 illustration or realism : is it quite in keeping 
 with this that even when the action is rapid 
 the only form of utterance should be song, or 
 subtly varied cadences of song ? — when, let us 
 say, an alarm of fire has to be given or a 
 cry of 'Stop thief!' raised. The choric parts 
 of a Greek drama, it might be argued, have a 
 better justification : the more realistic action is 
 suspended for a time, and we do not trouble
 
 174 LECTURES ON CLASSICAL SUBJECTS 
 
 ourselves to inquire whether a band of old men 
 or maidens would in real life sing such strains 
 in the agora or before the doors of a palace. 
 In the opera, with singing throughout, two 
 different grades of realism seem to be thrust 
 upon us at the same time. 
 
 Let us now return to the question. Why is 
 poetry metrical, and why does it use a language 
 of its own ? The answer will have to be that 
 a rather artificial or exalted and symmetrical 
 vein of language has been found by experience 
 to be appropriate to this particular kind of 
 /i/yU>?o-i?, and to the relation between this iAp.r\a-i<i 
 and reality, to ^\ eiuL/xeTpov elvai, Aristotle might 
 say, aTTo r^? ireipa^ rjp/uLOKev. Aristotle does not, 
 in fact, say that : but he says a similar thing 
 about the selection of metres in detail : the 
 association of a particular metre with a certain 
 vein of poetry is the result of experience and 
 repeated trials, the association is natural, not 
 arbitrary, avrrj >; (pvcris to oiKelov fxeTOov evpev, 
 Nature herself found out the appropriate metre 
 in each case. Thus the energetic and stately 
 march of the hexameter was found to be the 
 right measure for a heroic epos, the iambic 
 senarius was the nearest in its effect to ordinary
 
 THE LANGUAGE OF POETRY 175 
 
 speech, and therefore best suited for the drama, 
 the trochaic tetrameter had more of the move- 
 ment and liveliness of the dance. Aristotle 
 himself does not go much beyond this, but it 
 is easy to find further instances. In the elegy 
 or threnos the movement of the heroic measure 
 was cut short in every second line, it flagged 
 or sank as if in grief: the numbers 
 
 i> 
 
 wane 
 again and yet again 
 into a dirge and die away in pain.' 
 
 It was nature too, we might proceed, that 
 armed Archilochus with his rapier-like iambus, 
 and Hipponax with the bludgeon or dagger of 
 the scazon — both of these weapons of offence.^ 
 Nature again that found the loose and unhinged 
 Ionic measure for the voluptuous strains of 
 Anacreon, and the frenzy of Bacchic or Cory- 
 bantic revellers : the dochmiac measure for the 
 despair and mental stress at the crisis of a 
 tragedy : and the anapaest for the tread of a 
 chorus or the disciplined march of Spartan 
 troops. But if there is so much natural adap- 
 tation and appropriateness in particular metres, 
 
 ^ ' liber in adversos hostes stringatur iambus, 
 seu celer, extremum sen trahit ille pedem.' 
 
 Ovid, Rented. Amoris, 377-8.
 
 176 LECTURES ON CLASSICAL SUBJECTS 
 
 it would be absurd to suppose that the general 
 use of metre in poetry is eccentric or unneces- 
 sary, and not also dictated by ovt)] rj (pvcrig. 
 Now metre is only one of several ways in which 
 language may be adorned or raised, as it were, 
 above the level of everyday speech : an argu- 
 ment which justifies any one of these will justify 
 the others, and, coming back to historical facts, 
 we may observe that there is ' concomitant 
 variation.' Compare, for instance, Aeschylus and 
 Euripides and comedy : relaxation of metrical 
 strictness is accompanied by greater freedom and 
 colloquialism in language. To take the simplest 
 matter, that of vocabulary, comedy has many 
 words and turns of expression which even Euri- 
 pides would not admit in tragedy : ireov, ' really " 
 aTe-)(yw9, evay)(09 ' lately,' for the tragic aprio)?, 
 eywfxai, eyco ol/nai, and so forth. In modern 
 times the drama has, to a large extent, dis- 
 carded metrical form, and it recognises few 
 limitations in regard to vocabulary and idiom, 
 even in tragedy. But this only means that in 
 a certain kind of poetic /ml/utja-i^ — where scenery 
 and actors bring with them a considerable degree 
 of realism — the old exaltation of language has 
 been found to be unnecessary now, though it
 
 THE LANGUAGE OF POETRY 177 
 
 was natural enough, and can still be used with 
 effect. Other forms of poetry must always be 
 metrical, and subject to restrictions in their choice 
 of language. 
 
 What then is the restriction, in its most ele- 
 mentary form ? It is that the language of 
 serious poetry, though it may be simple, must 
 not be trivial or ignoble : what is fatal is what 
 Aristotle calls the raireivov or ei/reXe?, ayopala 
 p7]/xaTa, words which are inseparably associated 
 with the sordid and insignificant details of life. 
 To explain his meaning, Aristotle constructs an 
 illustration out of a line in the Odyssey, sub- 
 stituting for Homer's adjectives two more prosaic 
 ones. The poet is describing the act of placing 
 a poor or humble table and chair for a guest : 
 Aristotle supposes the line to run : — ' set down a 
 second-rate chair and a table of small dimen- 
 sions.'^ I have seen a similar effect produced 
 by using the word ' ignite ' in translating from 
 Homer : ' the Goddess ignited a bright flame 
 about the head of Peleus' son ' — for ' ignite ' is 
 a word which can hardly be dissociated from 
 
 ^ di<ppoi' jMoxO-qphv Karadels fJLiKpdv re rpdve^av. fxoxOrjpos is 
 the word which would be applied in colloquial speech to the 
 products of defective carpentry or jerry-building. 
 
 M
 
 178 LECTURES ON CLASSICAL SUBJECTS 
 
 lucifer matches and chemical experiments. Fur- 
 ther examples of this kind of bathos may be 
 found in the treatise of Swift to which I have 
 already referred : 
 
 ' Should the whole frame of nature round him break, 
 He unconcerned would hear the mighty crack.'' 
 
 But examples may be found which are not fic- 
 titious. The poet who like Euripides or Words- 
 worth revolts against the traditional style of 
 poetry runs a risk of failing to distinguish 
 between the simple and the trivial. A single 
 turn of expression which is eureXe? may be dis- 
 astrous to the effect of a whole stanza or poem. 
 Wordsworth did not always escape this danger. 
 Consider for instance the poem called ' The 
 Lament of Margaret ' : 
 
 'Where art thou, my beloved son. 
 Where art thou, worse to me than dead.? 
 Oh find me prosperous or undone, 
 Or, if the grave be now thy bed, 
 Why am I ignorant of the same. 
 That I may rest, and neither blame 
 Nor sorrow may attend thy name.' 
 
 In the fifth line a wrong note is struck, there 
 is a flaw in language which distracts our atten- 
 tion from the force and pathos of the whole :
 
 THE LANGUAGE OF POETRY 179 
 
 ' of the same ' belongs to legal documents, to 
 contracts and leases, not to poetry. Now if the 
 poet is to avoid the trivial, he must do one of 
 two things : he must either use words which 
 have distinctly picturesque and dignified associ- 
 ations, archaic or literary words ; or words which 
 are quite simple and have no definite associations. 
 And a further limitation is imposed upon him 
 by the nature of poetry : he will, as a rule, 
 avoid abstract or scientific terms, abstract 
 generalizations. The general truths which poetry 
 presents to us, ra /caOo'Aou, are not abstract 
 truths or maxims. The poet's language must 
 be sensuous and concrete. A simple illustration 
 of this may be found in the vocabulary of 
 Greek tragedy. Nouns in -txis' and adjectives in 
 -Ko'i are more or less abstract, describing a pro- 
 cess or tendency : airocrTepricn^, the process of 
 depriving or withholding, aTroa-TepijTiKo^, tending 
 to deprive or withhold. Words of this form 
 hardly ever occur in tragic verse. The excep- 
 tions are of the kind which are said to ' prove 
 the rule ' : they are simple words for common 
 ideas, hardly abstract at all : vavriKo?, Ittttiko^, 
 o'lKtja-ig. When the poets could not avoid an 
 abstract substantive they sometimes expressed it
 
 i8o LECTURES ON CLASSICAL SUBJECTS 
 
 by a plural. Thus Sophocles uses yXwa-a-ai for 
 
 ' language ' and Pindar /ud-^aipai for the strokes 
 
 of the knife or the process of flaying {Pyth. 
 
 iv. 242). So in Latin ' enses ' means swords 
 
 flashing, that is, massacre or war ; ' ligones,' the 
 
 strokes of a mattock or hoe, in Horace : 
 
 ' lig-onibus duris humum 
 exhauriebat ' {Epodes, v. 30). 
 
 ' sceptra,' the repeated wielding of a sceptre, that 
 is, sovereignty. ' Regna ' and ' arma ' are similar 
 plurals. ' Tecta ' perhaps is to be compared 
 rather with the Homeric dp/xaTa, a plural desig- 
 nating a complex object — a concrete thing, not 
 an abstraction. 
 
 Passing from these negative considerations, 
 we may now proceed to review and illustrate 
 some of the chief characteristics of the language 
 of the great poets. 
 
 (i) In the hands of a great poet, language 
 seems to become fluid and tractable, capable of 
 being moulded and transmuted into new shapes. 
 In prose and ordinary speech words are like 
 counters which have been rubbed smooth b)^ 
 constant use. They are like algebraic symbols, 
 with a fixed and definite meaning. But in 
 poetry they may take on a new meaning. A
 
 THE LANGUAGE OF POETRY i8i 
 
 good instance is perhaps to be found in a 
 passage of Sophocles where (TVju(popal ^ovXevjudrcov 
 seems to be used in the sense of ' comparison 
 of counsels ' as if from (Tv/ui.(p€peii/ ^ovKev/xara : 
 but the instance is uncertain, for critics are 
 not agreed that the word has not here the 
 more ordinary sense of issues or results.^ In 
 prose ' misfortune ' is its normal meaning. 
 Another example may be found in Horace's 
 use of the word ' caducus ' in ' fulmine sustulerit 
 caduco.' ' Caducus ' in prose would mean 
 perishable, doomed to decay : Horace seems 
 to revert to the origin of the word and to 
 think of ' cadere,' a descending thunderbolt, 
 Karai^drrig Kepavv6<i, or perhaps a thunderbolt 
 that readily falls or is launched by a touch. 
 Language, we might say, reverts to an earlier 
 stage, when it is plastic or in process of 
 formation. A poetic context may lift a word 
 out of the groove in which it commonly runs. 
 In English, for example, ' the mortal ' would 
 normally mean o OuyjTog, but Tennyson uses it 
 in the sense of to OvrjTop, the mortal part of 
 
 ^ I am disposed to think that Prof. Phillimore has solved this 
 old problem by his recent suggestion (Class. Rev. Oct. 1902) that 
 (TVfKpopai here means accidental results or 'flukes.'
 
 i82 LECTURES ON CLASSICAL SUBJECTS 
 
 a man, when he describes the burial of the 
 Duke of Wellington : 
 
 ' The black earth yawns, the mortal disappears : 
 Ashes to ashes, dust to dust.' 
 
 One large class of poetic expressions will 
 lead us some little way into the domain of 
 logic and metaphysics. If we find a poet 
 saying ' ferri rigor ' instead of ' rigidum ferrum,' 
 what account are we to give of this ? We 
 are accustomed to think of the world about 
 us as made up of real ' things ' with qualities 
 somehow inhering in them. But if we look 
 closely into the matter, the distinction between 
 things and qualities seems to disappear : it is 
 not ultimate. ' Yellow ' is merely a symbol 
 by which we distinguish and recall or recognise 
 a certain perception or experience : but ' gold ' 
 is just the same sort of term, only with a 
 rather more complex content, a group of two 
 or three qualities and not merely one quality. 
 Words from this point of view may be 
 regarded merely as devices for grouping or 
 arranging our experience : and the poet, to 
 use the Platonic metaphor of Kar apQpa 
 Te^veiv, does not always find the same joints 
 or divisions as other people : what is to them
 
 THE LANGUAGE OF POETRY 183 
 
 a mere quality in a supposed ' thing ' may 
 be to him the central or more vividly con- 
 ceived entity, of which the ' thing ' is a 
 particular and transitory manifestation. Be 
 this as it may, it is at least certain that what 
 would be an adjective in prose is often and 
 very effectively a substantive in poetry. ' Ferri 
 rigor,' ' auri splendor,' and a still more imagi- 
 native phrase in Lucretius, ' glacies aeris,'^ the 
 ice or icy hardness of bronze. 
 
 ' Bind on thy sandals, O thou most fleet, 
 Over the splejidour and speed of thy feet.' 
 
 ' Pedibusque rotarum subiciunt lapsus,' they 
 put gliding wheels under the horse's feet. 
 ' Rotarum lapsus ' may perhaps be illustrated 
 in English by the help of a phrase in Hood's 
 ' Letter from a Young Lady in Lincolnshire' : 
 
 * the country is flat, but the windmills lend 
 revolving animation to the scene.' This phrase 
 is of cour.se rather ludicrous, at all events in 
 English : but ' the revolving animation of a 
 windmill ' is the kitid of expression by which 
 
 ^ ' Argenli pondus plumbique potestas,' Lucr. v. 1242. 
 
 * Potestas ' here seems to stand for the collective qualities of 
 a metal, its substance or essence, just as 'pondus' or 'rigor' 
 designates one of them.
 
 1 84 LECTURES ON CLASSICAL SUBJECTS 
 
 that piece of mechanism might be described 
 in, let us say, Greek tragic verse. tjOo^wv 
 ^do-ei? is a tragic phrase answering to ' lapsus 
 rotarum.' This poetic idiom by which some 
 salient feature or quality of a thing is empha- 
 sised is not limited to the description of 
 nature and natural objects. It is frequently 
 used in the case of persons. Homer's yueVo? 
 'AXkii^ooio and Horace's ' mitis sapientia Laeli ' 
 are well-known instances. A pleasing example 
 has been preserved from Ennius' description 
 of an interview between Numa and Egeria, 
 
 ' olli respondit suavis sonus Egeriai ' ^ 
 
 and the idiom is perhaps specially suited to 
 express what is supernatural or mysterious. So 
 in Sophocles there is the apparition of the bull- 
 shaped river, vyjnKepo) Terpaopou (pda-fia Tavpov, 
 and similarly in Virgil, 'monstra ferarum,' strange 
 shapes of wild beasts. But the poets have no 
 monopoly in this mode of expression. It belongs 
 also to Latin prose, and is not infrequent in 
 picturesque or descriptive passages. ' Lofty 
 
 •* Qpycrcrai^ iv cravicnv, ras 
 'Op(peia Kwriypaipev 
 
 yrjpv^. Eur. A/c. 967. 
 
 Here ' the voice of Orpheus ' clearly means ' sweet- voiced Orpheus.'
 
 THE LANGUAGE OF POETRY 185 
 
 mountains and old shady forests ' would be, for 
 example, ' montium altitudines, veteres umbrae ^ 
 silvarum,' and Cicero even has the phrase 
 ' fontium gelidae perennitates ' for cool, ever- 
 flowing springs. Cicero moreover has the idiom 
 in the case of persons, ' ilia virtus, ilia humanitas 
 L. Crassi morte extincta subita est,' with which 
 may be compared Juvenal's ' Crispi iucunda 
 senectus,' and his phrase for old Alban wine, 
 'Albani veteris pretiosa senectus,' or the ' spatium 
 admirabile rhombi ' of the Fourth Satire. 
 
 From this idiom I pass to another which 
 is concerned with adjectives. In ordinary speech 
 when we apply an adjective to a thing we mean 
 that the thing has the quality in a kind of 
 passive way ; if we call a thing blue, we mean 
 that it looks blue or has been painted blue. 
 But in the poets an adjective is sometimes used 
 in an active sense. The thing does not so much 
 possess the quality itself as impart it to others. 
 Thus in the phrase ' rigidum permanat frigus ad 
 ossa,' ' rigidum ' is rather ' stiffening ' than ' stiff' 
 So ' forgetful ' may mean causing forgetfulness 
 
 ' The sleepy drench of that forgetful lake,' 
 and so in Tennyson ' the sound of that forgetful 
 
 ^So Tennyson, ' thridding the sombre boskage of the wood.'
 
 i86 LECTURES ON CLASSICAL SUBJECTS 
 
 shore' {In Memor. xxxv. 14), and in a lesser 
 poet, Silius, of the stream of Lethe, 
 
 ''immemori perstringens gurgite ripas' 
 
 [Pimica, xvi. 477). 
 
 It is a species of ' Metonymy,' ' ab eo quod fit 
 id quod facit.' Many examples have been found 
 in Horace, though some of them are perhaps 
 uncertain, admitting of a different interpretation : 
 'insigni camena' (ennobling, glorifying): 'pallida 
 mors ' : ' aspera | nigris aequora ventis ' (causing 
 blackness, ruffling the sea into dark waves): 'molli 
 mero ' (soothing, tranquil lising).i Perhaps the 
 best instance in English is Milton's ' swart star,' 
 
 ' gushy brooks 
 upon whose lap the swart star sparely looks ' 
 
 {Lycidas) 
 
 where the Dog Star is meant, that scorches or 
 blackens the fields, Horace's ' torrentia agros 
 sidera.' 
 
 ^ There is a curious instance in the Silvae of Statins : 
 'tenet haec marcentia fratris 
 pocula,' 
 one hand (of a statue of Hercules) holds the cup of his brother 
 Bacchus. 'Marcere,' 'marcidus' are words which describe the 
 effects of wine-drinking. The adjective is used by Statius in a 
 passage of the I2th book, 
 
 ' moUia laudabat iain marcidus orgia Ganges, '
 
 THE LANGUAGE OF POETRY 187 
 
 It would of course be an easy matter to 
 make out a long list of the figures of speech 
 which poets have used effectively : aposiopesis, 
 climax, personification and the rest. But these 
 are common to poetry and oratory : they belong 
 to any kind of impassioned or ornate speech. 
 We are concerned with what is peculiar to 
 poetry, and at present, in particular, with the 
 ways in which a poet seems sometimes to fuse 
 or recast language. Consider one more example 
 of this before we pass to another subject. The 
 example is a thing which perhaps belongs rather 
 specially to Virgil : it consists in making some 
 modification in a common or current phrase, so 
 that it acquires a new significance. ' Sponte 
 sua' is a well-known phrase, one of the fixed 
 counters or symbols of prose speech, which an 
 orator or a historian would have to accept as 
 it stands. Virgil speaking of a storm turns 
 it into ' forte sua,' 
 
 ' forte sua Libycis tempestas adtulit oris,' 
 
 ' at its own wild will.' ' Dare fatis vela ' is a 
 similar variation, with an obvious and effective 
 meaning for the common ' dare ventis vela.' 
 ' Dare classibus austros ' is an inversion of which
 
 i88 LECTURES ON CLASSICAL SUBJECTS 
 
 the drift is perhaps rather more obscure : the 
 fleet seems to be thought of as clamouring to 
 be let loose. 
 
 (2) The language of great poetry has almost 
 always been rich in metaphor or imagery. 
 Metaphor, it may be objected, is common to 
 poetry and oratory, and is therefore outside our 
 inquiry. But the poet is not metaphorical in 
 the same way as the orator. The manner is 
 different. In poetry metaphors are bolder and 
 more subtle, and the transition from one to 
 another is often more rapid. They are often 
 introduced too by turns of language which an 
 orator could hardly venture to use. ' Illam 
 incendentem luctus,' ' kindling a blaze of grief 
 iraiav Se \dfj.7rei — ' shines ' standing for ' rings 
 loud.' Or the gods are said to have ' rocked 
 the city on wild waves,' ttoXXw crdXcp a-eiaravre?, 
 where the verb seems to suggest a second 
 metaphor of earthquake {G-eiaixos:). Mixture of 
 metaphors is not so reprehensible in poetry as 
 in oratory. The orator addresses himself to 
 ordinary minds, and that under less favourable 
 conditions : he must aim at broad, rough-hewn 
 effects, and he errs if he starts with the 
 metaphor of a storm and ends his sentence
 
 THE LANGUAGE OF POETRY 189 
 
 with a fire or the collapse of a building.^ 
 
 ' Hoc fonte derivata clades 
 
 in patriam populumque fluxit ' — 
 
 Horace's metaphor, in its neatness and consis- 
 tency and its manner generally, is not specially 
 poetical : it is rather a passage which should 
 be kept in mind by a writer of Latin prose,^ 
 who has to speak of causes and effects. 
 
 To review the varieties of poetic metaphor 
 would be an endless task. Two remarks about 
 it must suffice : one is a reservation, the other 
 is historical. The reservation is that though 
 it is true, as Aristotle says, that it is of the 
 first importance that the poet be fj-eracpoptKo? or 
 have a command of metaphor, he is not to be 
 thought of as always or of necessity speaking 
 in figurative language. Many of Virgil's greatest 
 lines are extremely simple, and either not meta- 
 phorical at all or not in any way dependent 
 upon metaphor for their effect. 
 
 ' aude, hospes, contemnere opes et te quoque dignum 
 finge dec' 
 
 The historical remark is that the poet's imagery 
 
 ^ Quint, vin. vi. 50: ' Multi autem, cum initium a tempestate 
 sumpserunt, incendio aut ruina finiunt : quae est inconsequentia 
 rerum foedissima.'
 
 I90 LECTURES ON CLASSICAL SUBJECTS 
 
 at first takes the more deliberate and explicit 
 form of a simile. Homer paints a picture and 
 then calls his hearer's attention to the resem- 
 blance. ' Even as snow-flakes fall thick on a 
 day of winter' — and the snowstorm is fully 
 and vividly described in several lines — ' so flew 
 the darts and arrows between the opposing hosts.' 
 It is only later, as in Sophocles, that poetic 
 language comes to be penetrated or saturated 
 with metaphor. The hearer is now more acute 
 and receptive : the image or figure is introduced 
 boldly and without apology, sometimes in a 
 single word such as oiaKoa-Tpocpeh, to ' wield 
 the helm ' for ' to guide ' or ' direct.' Even in 
 Homer, however, there are some metaphors : a 
 few forms of imagery have become sufficiently 
 familiar to need no elaboration or explanation. 
 Battle ' blazes ' or 'is ablaze,' S€S)]€P, iJ-ayj] 
 Kavcrreipa ; Destiny ' fetters ' her victim, eTreSrjo-e ; 
 a man is puSov a.(pvei6<i, — as Chaucer says, ' It 
 snewed in his house of meat and drink ' : a 
 war is wound to the end like a ball or clew 
 of wool, TToXe/uLov ToXvireveiu : the blood ' shot ' 
 up in a jet from the wound, aljua (5' av>]K6vri^e. 
 But these are exceptions in Homer. The 
 simile is much more frequent.
 
 THE LANGUAGE OF POETRY 191 
 
 (3) We have seen that the poet, debarred 
 from trivial words, must use either words which 
 are extremely simple or words which have 
 distinctly picturesque or impressive associations. 
 We must now resume the latter idea, and 
 consider how a poet uses words which have 
 already acquired some poetical value. Some 
 poets have used such words more than others : 
 none, perhaps, so often or so successfully as 
 Virgil. We might say of him in Aristotle's 
 language oeoloaye tov? aWovg elpi]iJ.eva Xeyeiv 
 ft)? ^el. Virgil's skill in awaking the echoes of 
 the past by a word or phrase has often been 
 discussed and illustrated. A few remarks about 
 it must suffice here. Very often it was the 
 language of Ennius, of the early national epic 
 of Rome, that he revived or recalled, but 
 many other poets are laid under contribution. 
 One of the most striking instances of allusive 
 art or the art of reminiscence is in a passage 
 of the Georgics on the triumphs of philosophy. 
 ' Happy is he who knows the causes of things 
 and has trampled under foot the fear of death,' 
 
 ' strepitumque Acherontis avari.' 
 Virgil does not name Lucretius, but Lucretius
 
 192 LECTURES ON CLASSICAL SUBJECTS 
 
 had spoken of the ' metus Acheruntis,' and the 
 allusion to him seems unmistakable.^ In modern 
 English poetry there is no better illustration 
 of the Virgilian method than a word in Tenny- 
 son's lines addressed to Virgil : ' I salute thee, 
 Mantovano,' where the Italian adjective recalls 
 the intervening poem of Dante and the disciple- 
 ship of Dante to the poet of Mantua. Some 
 of Virgil's echoes or reminiscences, it must 
 be admitted, are less happy than others. Once 
 or twice Virgil uses in a serious context words 
 which in an earlier poet had been comic or 
 less dignified. Thus the opening scene of Aen. 
 X. was modelled on a council of the gods in 
 Lucilius, where the debate was about the fate 
 of a corrupt judge, Lupus. There is a similar 
 case in Tennyson : 
 
 ' And of his ashes shall be made 
 The violet of his native land.' 
 
 This is a reminiscence of Persius : 
 
 ' nunc non e tumulo fortunataque favilla 
 nascentur violae ? ' 
 
 but the passage in Persius is sarcastic, dealing 
 
 ^ The Augustan poets seem to be reluctant to name the 
 materialistic Lucretius. Horace does not name him either, but 
 uses his words {'decs didici securum agere aevum,' Sat. i. v.).
 
 THE LANGUAGE OF POETRY 193 
 
 with the triumphs of the fashionable poet. If 
 a theory recently propounded ^ is true, Virgil 
 borrowed rather extensively from his friend 
 Cornelius Gallus, and sometimes used rather 
 infelicitously what he borrowed. For example, 
 in the sixth book of the Aeneid, the Sibyl suddenly 
 shows the golden bough to Charon : 
 
 ' at ramum hunc — aperit ramum, qui veste latebat — 
 agnoscas.' 
 
 In the Ciris, which according to this theory 
 is the work of Cornelius Gallus, we find the 
 line : 
 
 ' aut ferro hoc — aperit ferrum quod veste latebat ' — 
 
 Now, in the Aeneid it is not very clear why 
 the Sibyl should conceal the bough : but in the 
 Ciris there is nothing obscure or unnatural ; 
 Scylla, the heroine, has been contemplating 
 suicide, and she lets an aged attendant and 
 confidante see her concealed dagger. 
 
 The use of allusive or traditional language 
 was perhaps thrust upon the Roman poets by 
 the conditions under which they worked. The 
 Latin language was not naturally suited for 
 poetry in the same way as the Greek. It had 
 
 ^By Skutsch, in Atis VcTgils Friihzeit, Leipzig, 1901. 
 
 N
 
 194 LECTURES ON CLASSICAL SUBJECTS 
 
 great qualities or possibilities — it could be stately, 
 lucid, and forcible— but it had not a similar 
 wealth of graceful and picturesque words ; its 
 resources were more limited, it was comparatively 
 stern, narrow, and hard. The poet has to do 
 what he can with rather simple materials, and 
 has to take what help he can get from a 
 predecessor ; for instance, Virgil could the more 
 easily make the adjective ' mirus ' convey some 
 sense of the ghostly or supernatural, because 
 Lucretius had used it in a similar context before 
 him : ' ora ' or ' simulacra,' * modis pallentia miris.' 
 We have now surveyed some of the ways in 
 which the language of poetry differs from that 
 of prose, and the last remark has brought us 
 back to history and to a comparison of languages. 
 But if we are to compare languages, we must 
 revert also to the simple question of vocabulary, 
 for the modes of using words in poetry have 
 varied greatly in different poets and different 
 ages. To what extent do we find two words 
 for the same thing, a prosaic and a poetical 
 word, like ' horse ' and ' steed,' ' Pferd ' and 
 ' Ross,' ' equus ' and ' sonipes ' ? How does the 
 matter stand in the case of the Greek and 
 Latin languages?
 
 THE LANGUAGE OF POETRY 195 
 
 There is one very conspicuous difference 
 between Greek and Roman literature. In Greece, 
 literary works were produced in several different 
 dialects : in Italy no dialect save Latin ever 
 attained to any literary importance at all — the 
 last possibility of that disappeared with the 
 close of the Social War in 88 B.C. A Greek 
 writer had therefore an immense advantage in 
 command of words : he had more sources to 
 draw upon : he played upon an instrument of 
 greater range and more subtle tone. And this 
 was especially the case in poetry, for in prose 
 Attic soon became normal and dominant. One 
 consequence of this is that not only do we 
 find different words used in prose and poetry, 
 but each kind of poetry has in some degree a 
 language of its own. There are epic words and 
 tragic words, both distinct from the correspond- 
 ing prose words. Thus iray^ and -Kajxirav are 
 epic : KupTa is tragic : cr(poSpa and ttclvu belong 
 to prose and comedy. So again olkoiti^ or 
 irupaKoiTi^ is epic : Sd/uap tragic : ywy/ belongs 
 to prose — yvpy'i is the simple and colourless 
 word, regular in prose, but capable of being 
 used in verse also. It is the language of 
 tragedy that presents the most interesting
 
 196 LECTURES ON CLASSICAL SUBJECTS 
 
 problem from our present point of view. How 
 did the tragic poet come to possess the words 
 (paa-yavov and Kapa, when the prose-writer had 
 only ^L(po9 and /cec^aXj/? Two distinct theories 
 have been advanced. One is that the language 
 of tragedy is a survival from the sixth century, 
 the time when tragedy arose : it is in fact old 
 Attic. The other theory traces the peculiarities 
 of tragic speech to a literary source. They 
 came from the great literature of Ionia, from 
 Archilochus and Herodotus. That literature was 
 well known at Athens, and the lonians were 
 kinsmen. What words could be better suited 
 to the purpose of the tragic poet than such as 
 would readily be understood by his hearers 
 but which yet were not degraded by constant 
 use on trivial occasions ? On the other hand, 
 there are arguments of some force against the 
 theory of survival. It involves the supposition 
 that a vast change in the vocabulary of the 
 Athenians took place in a century or less. 
 And we have as it happens at least one inscrip- 
 tion from the sixth century to show that 
 Attic and Ionic were not identical in vocabulary 
 at that time : this is an inscription from Sigeum, 
 drawn up in parallel columns, one in Attic, one
 
 THE LANGUAGE OF POETRY 197 
 
 in Ionic. The same thing — a stand for a cup — 
 is called k-Kia-raTov in one and v7roKpt]T7'/piov in 
 the other. 
 
 In turning to Latin, we must not expect to 
 find anything so elaborate and so highly differ- 
 entiated and developed as the poetic language 
 of Greece. The early history of Roman poetry 
 is largely the history of a struggle with a 
 refractory language. At first the Romans tried 
 to run their language into the moulds which 
 Greek poetry supplied, representing for example 
 Sla dedm' by ' dia dearum,' and assuming that 
 what Homer did they might do. If a Greek 
 line may end in vTreprjvopeovrwv, a word of 
 seven syllables, why should not a Latin one 
 end in ' sapientipotentes ' ? ' Sapientipotentes ' 
 also illustrates the boldness of the early poet 
 in forming new words. Prolonged experiment 
 showed that the Latin language imposed new 
 and different conditions upon the poet. The 
 achievement of success in the poetic art — in the 
 first century before Christ — brought with it the 
 abandonment of these erratic flights. The 
 bolder policy of the early poets, however, pro- 
 vided their successors with a good deal of use- 
 ful material. If they made many cumbrous
 
 198 LECTURES ON CLASSICAL SUBJECTS 
 
 compounds which could be of little further ser- 
 vice, like ' sapientipotentes ' or ' incurvicervicus,' 
 they also made some neat and effective ones : 
 and Ennius sometimes struck out a phrase to 
 which Virgil could extend a welcome, for its 
 moral ' gravitas ' or weighty rhythm or ancient 
 associations : ' cum populo patribusque penatibus 
 et magnis dis.' 
 
 The Romans were very critical about their 
 own language, and spent much study upon it. 
 So we are not surprised to find that Quintilian 
 has a very definite account to give of the 
 language of poetry. Cicero had touched upon 
 the subject before him. Quintilian points out 
 that some picturesque and poetic terms may 
 find a place in prose, while others may not. 
 We may say in prose ' mucro ' for ' gladius,' 
 and ' tectum ' for ' domus ' ; but not ' puppis ' 
 in the sense of ' navis,' or ' abies ' in the sense 
 of ' tabellae ' ; ^ ' ferrum ' for ' gladius,' but not 
 ' quadrupes ' for ' equus ' (^Inst. Or. VIII. vi. 20). 
 In another passage he says that ' reor ' may 
 pass, but ' autumo ' is tragic, and ' proles ' 
 belongs to verse (^Inst. Or. viil. iii, 26). 
 Cicero does not altogether exclude ' proles ' 
 
 ^ Plautus, Persa, 248 : ' obsignatam abietem fero. '
 
 THE LANGUAGE OF POETRY 199 
 
 from prose : that word and ' suboles ' and 
 ' fari ' and ' nuncupo ' he would be prepared to 
 use if occasion served {^De Oratore, ill. 153). 
 It is easy to add a few further observations on 
 the Hnes laid down by Quintilian, and with 
 these our inquiry into poetic language must 
 close. Latin has not a great many words which 
 are restricted to poetry altogether, words which 
 never, or practically never, occur in prose. 
 ' Ensis ' and ' inclutus ' seem to be examples. 
 ' Puppis,' ' carina,' and ' ratis ' are exclusively 
 poetic in the sense of ship ; in their special 
 senses of ' poop,' ' keel,' and ' raft ' they are 
 admissible in prose. ' Fari ' is distinctly poetic, 
 and so are most parts of the verb ' reri,' though 
 the participle ' ratus ' is quite frequent in history. 
 Besides ' quadrupes ' as a distinctly poetic term 
 for ' horse,' there is also, as we have seen, the 
 still more picturesque or highly coloured ' soni- 
 pes,' which is almost Si6vpaiu^ociS€<; in character 
 and recalls Hesiod's snail. In most languages, 
 it would seem, there are very various grades of 
 poetic quality in words, and a complete scale 
 might be constructed. The frequency with 
 which a word could successfully be used in 
 prose would be a rough test. At one end of
 
 200 LECTURES ON CLASSICAL SUBJECTS 
 
 the scale would stand words which are incurably 
 prosaic, and which could never find a place in 
 serious verse : at the other, words like ' sonipes ' 
 or a/ia//xd/ceT09, for which even the most imagi- 
 native and venturous of prose writers could 
 never find an appropriate setting.
 
 VII. 
 THE METRICAL FORM OF POETRY. 
 
 In a well-known passage of the Poetics, Aris- 
 totle says that poetry arises from two causes 
 or sources, both of them inherent in human 
 nature. One is the instinct of imitation or 
 mimicry, and the pleasure which men feel in 
 beholding or hearing what is thus produced — 
 this, we should probably understand, is the 
 first cause, stated in a double aspect, as an 
 instinct in the imitator and an answering 
 instinct in his fellows. The second — or the 
 third, added as an afterthought, but this seems 
 less likely — is the instinct for apixovla and 
 pvQixo^, for tune and for time or rhythm. Cer- 
 tainly it seems to belong to human nature and 
 to be a primitive tendency that at certain 
 seasons utterance should be in some way raised 
 above the ordinary level of talk, should be
 
 202 LECTURES ON CLASSICAL SUBJECTS 
 
 stately and regular and recurrent. Aristotle 
 closely connects the rise of various forms of 
 poetry with religious celebrations. The gods 
 or the spirits of the mighty dead may not be 
 addressed in casual or unregulated words — hence 
 the vjxvoi and ejKWfxia which preceded the heroic 
 epos. Thus there came into use a ' carmen ' : 
 not perhaps necessarily metrical or what we 
 should now call metrical, but utterance cut 
 into ' lengths ' or sections : ' carmen ' is perhaps 
 to be traced to a verb, ' carere,' to ' divide,' which 
 appears in ' caro,' a portion of flesh, and in 
 ' cardo,' the dividing line between door and 
 wall. In a phrase like ' lex horrendi carminis,' 
 the word means rather a solemn phrase or 
 formula than a verse. But the mere feeling 
 that certain utterances must be solemn or im- 
 pressive will not carry us very far. We should 
 have to point also to a more general sense for 
 form and symmetry, such a sense as is mani- 
 fested in architecture : partly, as Aristotle might 
 say, an intellectual interest in constructing or 
 understanding a complex and skilfully planned 
 fabric. And to account for the poetry of later 
 ages, we should have to touch upon more 
 subtle questions of psychology, and perhaps
 
 THE METRICAL FORM OF POETRY 203 
 
 venture upon the paradox that it is just the 
 artificiality of metrical form that makes verse 
 a suitable vehicle for the most intense and 
 fervid emotions. Most Englishmen are more 
 or less reticent and reserved : but even among 
 more effusive peoples the finer spirits at least 
 are by no means wholly unreserved or read}' 
 to ' wear the heart upon the sleeve.' And it 
 may well be that the writer of verse has a 
 sense of security, if he should meet with an 
 unsympathetic hearer, in being able to say : ' I 
 do not give you this as a crude and literal 
 transcript of my feelings : you may look upon 
 it as an exercise in metrical form, or at all 
 events as the delineation of the feelings of an 
 ideal person, with whom perhaps I identify 
 myself more or less — but how closely is no 
 business of yours.' This would be very much 
 what Aristotle means when he says that poetry 
 is concerned with to. KudoXov. In his introduc- 
 tion to In Memoriani Mr. A. C. Bradley draws an 
 instructive distinction between * the poet ' and the 
 individual person, Alfred Tennyson : evidence 
 as to the way in which hi Memoriavi was 
 written, and the times at which various parts 
 were composed, seems to show that it was by
 
 204 LECTURES ON CLASSICAL SUBJECTS 
 
 no means a literal and immediate transcript of 
 feelings as they arose.^ Obviously many of the 
 odes of Horace may be looked at in the same 
 light : whether the experiences of ' the poet ' 
 were exactly those of the person Q. Horatius 
 Flaccus we can never know, and need not 
 greatly care. But this line of thought may 
 lead us astray if we pursue it too far. We 
 may come to think of the poem as something 
 fictitious and artificial, constructed by an in- 
 tellectual effort when all real feeling has ceased. 
 To take this view would be to lay too much 
 stress on one part of a well-known definition, 
 ' Poetry is emotion recollected in tranquillity.' 
 It is not merely ' recollected,' if we mean by 
 recollection a purely intellectual process. The 
 fire is kindled again. But the emotion is so 
 far tranquillised that it can be accompanied by 
 what is intellectual, by constructive effort and 
 attention to grace of form. The poet is in a 
 sense outside his emotion, he is treating it as 
 a subject for art : but it is not an unreal 
 emotion for all that. 
 
 ^ Mr. Bradley quotes Tennyson's own words : ' This is a poem, 
 not an actual biography. . . . ' I ' is not always the author 
 speaking of himself, but the voice of the human race speaking 
 through him.'
 
 THE METRICAL FORM OF POETRY 205 
 
 The aim of these preh'minary remarks is 
 not to explain anything so subtle as poetic 
 composition — perhaps even the poet himself 
 could not adequately do that — but to make it 
 clear that however mechanically we may have 
 to deal with metrical form we are not thereby 
 reducing poetry itself to something artificial or 
 mechanical : and perhaps we may be confirmed 
 in our general view by observing that the 
 poetry which expresses the strongest feeling 
 is by no means as a rule the simplest in point 
 of metre. A Sapphic or Alcaic stanza has a 
 more complex structure than hexameters or 
 blank verse. 
 
 Even the theory of metre is not necessarily 
 mechanical : Greek theories on the subject were 
 sometimes of a more or less Platonic cast. In 
 the whole universe, according to Plato, a kind 
 of rhythm or order is impressed upon refractory 
 matter by di\'ine reason. ' Metre,' says Lon- 
 ginus in his Prolegomena to Hephaestion, ' is the 
 offspring of rhythm and of God,' niirpov Se 
 TTUTtjp pvO/uog Koi. Oeo? : and we should be fol- 
 lowing closely in the track of Greek thought 
 if we imagined Apollo saying to the poet, 
 ' The universe is a kind of poem with a divine
 
 2o6 LECTURES ON CLASSICAL SUBJECTS 
 
 rhythm in it : but that rhythm is so subtle 
 and complex that only I who am the Trpoiprjrt]? 
 of Zeus could follow it : if you are to sing to 
 your fellow-men, you must simplify the rhythm : 
 in the stories that you tell the meaning must 
 be plainer and more on the surface than it is 
 in real events, and the utterance must have a 
 regular and obvious cadence.' Having so 
 spoken, the god explained to the poet the 
 nature of the two primary metres, lu-erpa 
 TrpwroTuira, from which all the others could 
 be derived — so at least the imvOo? would run 
 if certain ancient theorists constructed it. This 
 theory of the derivation of metres is neither 
 historical nor inspired, but through Varro it 
 probably had some influence on the metrical 
 practice of Roman poets. 
 
 If we are in search of a theory of metre, it is 
 not open to us at the present day to go back 
 to a revelation made by Apollo. We must, 
 in fact, begin with some very simple and more 
 or less mathematical conceptions and considera- 
 tions, and obvious and elementary as they are, 
 I think it is important to review them, because 
 they might be taught with advantage, but as 
 far as I know are seldom or never taught, at
 
 THE METRICAL FORM OF POETRY 207 
 
 a quite early stage in classical education : as 
 soon, perhaps, as verse is read at all. Usually, 
 as far as I have observed, a great deal is left 
 unexplained. The questions which an active- 
 minded boy might well ask are neither suggested 
 to boys nor answered. Why does a hexameter 
 end in a dactyl and spondee ? Why are 
 spondees admitted in iambic and trochaic 
 verse ? And, this explained, why do they 
 come in alternate places, in the first, third, 
 and fifth feet of a senarius, but not in the 
 other feet ? I propose in this paper to touch 
 upon this question first — how should the ele- 
 ments of metre be presented or explained : 
 then to take up what belongs to a more 
 advanced stage in a literary training, the question 
 why certain metrical forms are specially asso- 
 ciated with certain subjects or emotions or 
 veins of thought : and, thirdly, to adumbrate a 
 sort of introduction to the study of Roman 
 metre — to consider the question how and why 
 the Roman poets modified in various ways the 
 metres which they adopted from the Greeks. 
 This last subject affords, I think, some instruc- 
 tive illustrations of principles which will have 
 been previously explained.
 
 2o8 LECTURES ON CLASSICAL SUBJECTS 
 
 I. SCIENTIAE MeTRICAE RUDIMENTA. 
 
 Our supposed exposition would have to begin 
 with the discrimination of pvdfxLKi] and fxerpiKi], 
 the science of rhythm and the science of 
 metre ; or at all events the teacher would have 
 to be clear about that in his own mind if he 
 is to be able to explain the elements of metre 
 clearly. And the distinction must be drawn 
 as the Greeks drew it. pvO/uiK)'} is the more 
 general and abstract science, dealing with a 
 series of intervals or ■^(^povoi, time-spaces or 
 whatever they should be called, empty moulds 
 as it were which may be filled or made per- 
 ceptible by any kind of sound or movement. 
 The material which fills them, which falls into 
 rhythmical shape or is subjected to rhythm {to 
 pvQfjLiX^oiJLevov) may be musical notes, or words 
 sung or spoken, or gestures and movements of 
 the body (a-)Q'iiJ.aTa, which form the pvOfxi^ojueuov 
 in the case of 6p-^r](Ti<;). An elementary and con- 
 tinuous form of this last kind of rhythm is to be 
 found in the swing of the blacksmith's hammer : 
 
 ' illi inter sese magna vi brachia toUunt 
 in numerum versantque tenaci forcipe massani.'^ 
 
 ^ iffTL yap 6 pvdpids eKreXo^fieuoi Kal dvo tQv iv xakKeloLS (T(f)vpQ)v, 
 Proleg. ad Hephaestionis £nchir. 3.
 
 THE METRICAL FORM OF POETRY 209 
 
 Here, too, there is an upward and a downward 
 movement, an apcri'i and a 0ecr<9 — terms which, 
 as the Greeks used them, were applied to the 
 foot of a dancer, but which in Roman times 
 (after a transition period in which they were 
 misused in a different way) were inverted by 
 being transferred to the voice. In a rhythmic 
 bar or foot there must be an ictus (or stroke on 
 the anvil) to give it character and structure : 
 and the part on which this falls is not necessarily 
 equal to the other, though in one of the most 
 common rhythms, the dactylic or anapaestic 
 (specially associated with a solemn march) the 
 ratio is equality. Bars or feet are made up 
 of certain units of time, and the primary unit 
 or yjpovo'i TrpwTo? may be designated by the 
 symbol which is in common use for a short 
 syllable, v_^. In the Greek theory — which is 
 really a final and exact account of the matter — 
 there were three main types of rhythm, consist- 
 ing of three, four and five -^povoi respectively, 
 _-^_, ^^^^, and ~_--^^^_: and the ratio 
 between the parts of a bar was 2:1 (^ ^ | ^ tro- 
 chaic, ^|^~^ iambic), 2:2 (^-.^ | — --), and 3:2 
 (^^_|^_, Cretic and Paeonic feet). The 
 
 incidence of the ictus was as follows : trochaic 
 
 o
 
 2IO LECTURES ON CLASSICAL SUBJECTS 
 
 ^^^, iambic ■^^^, dactylic ^-^ ^^, anapaestic 
 -_-^ ^^, Cretic ^-_— —~^, and usually, to make 
 the effect of the ictus more obvious and the 
 structure of the bar clearer, the syllable that 
 bore the ictus was combined with the following 
 syllable into one long syllable : trochee -: — ■, 
 iambus ^ — : dactyl —•^—, anapaest ^^— : Cretic 
 foot — ^— . 
 
 Now in this last sentence, in speaking of 
 ' syllables,' and in distinguishing trochee from 
 iambus and dactyl from anapaest, we have 
 crossed the boundary which separates pvO^iKi} 
 from juerpiKi']. Dactyl and anapaest are the same 
 rhythm : ' for rhythm, it is of no moment 
 whether the two short syllables come first or 
 last' ^ Metre is the application of rhythm to 
 language or articulate speech : one kind or 
 species of metre is dactylic, another and cognate 
 kind is anapaestic : and, within such a species, 
 a hexameter is one metre, a tetrameter is 
 another — metres, in other words, are ' lengths ' 
 or ' sections ' of rhythm, beginning in a certain 
 way, either with apcrig or Oeai?, and of a fixed 
 length. For such ' sections ' Aristotle uses the 
 
 1 Quint. IX. iv. 48 : rhythmo indififerens est, dactylusne ille 
 priores habeat breves an sequentes.
 
 THE METRICAL FORM OF POETRY 211 
 
 word T/uLtjTct in the Rhetoric, and it is probably 
 in the same sense that he calls metres jULopia rwv 
 pvOjuwp in the Poetics (c. iv.) : Aristides speaks 
 of TOfx)] pvQjjiov. It was not the only theory 
 current in antiquity regarding the relations of 
 rhythm and metre, but it seems to be the 
 most intelligible and useful view. 
 
 It now becomes possible to deal with the 
 various questions of the intelligent schoolboy. 
 Why does a hexameter end normally in a 
 dactyl and spondee ? We start with a dactylic 
 rhythm going on indefinitely, eh aireipov : 
 
 and this is to be cut into lengths of six. How 
 is each group of six to be marked out and 
 signalised as a separate whole ? An obvious 
 device is to make the sixth foot different from 
 the other five — its two last syllables are combined 
 into one and it becomes a spondee.^ But if we 
 made the fifth foot a spondee also, our device 
 would be frustrated and would lose its effect — 
 
 ^ It may be what /or Prosody is a trochee, — w Prosody is a 
 further step in the direction which we took in passing from rhythm 
 to metre. For metre and rhythm the last syllable of a group is 
 anceps, a.5id(j>opo$ — a short syllable may serve as a long, for the 
 time can be made up by a pause.
 
 212 LECTURES ON CLASSICAL SUBJECTS 
 
 the preceding foot must be the normal or funda- 
 mental one, a dactyl. Sometimes, it is true, the 
 poets make a line end in two spondees : in that 
 case the fourth foot is usually a dactyl, and the 
 effect is that of a larger and heavier ending, 
 four long syllables instead of two. Such a line, 
 the iT7roi/^e<a^(oi/, was affected by Alexandrian 
 poets and by their admirers at Rome : 
 
 ' quis angusta malis cum moenia vexarentur' — 
 
 The effect was too heavy for frequent use. Its 
 popularity was perhaps due in part to an acci- 
 dental or extraneous cause. The Homeric poems 
 contained many endings like y]6a Slav, Atjroog 
 wo'?, 'ATpetSao. In the course of time the lan- 
 guage of Homer was in some degree atticised 
 or modernised and lines like these became 
 (TTToi/Seidl^^oi'Teg. ' Spondee,' it should be added, 
 is a term which is not quite accurately applied 
 to the foot of two long syllables which occurs 
 in dactylic verse — that foot is merely a form 
 of the dactyl. The genuine spondee was associ- 
 ated with religious ceremonies and libations, 
 (TTTopSai, and was sometimes if not always much 
 
 slower in its movement: it was ^._., not , it 
 
 had the time of four long syllables, not of two.
 
 THE METRICAL FORM OF POETRY 213 
 
 The next question that awaits us is the 
 occurrence of ' spondees ' in iambic and trochaic 
 verse. We have now to deal with ' sections ' 
 of a different rhythm, a rhythm ev SnrXaa-iw Xoyw, 
 in which the ratio of the parts of a foot is 2:1. 
 How is the group or section to be made mani- 
 fest as one whole ? Again by making the last 
 foot or bar different from the others, and, this 
 time, by allowing it to be a little heavier : by 
 making it what, for Prosody, is a spondee. Thus 
 a trochaic tetrapody would be — >_- — ^ — ^ — — . 
 Clearly we cannot allow this variation in the 
 first foot ; for if it were admitted, the series 
 
 would begin with three long syllables , and 
 
 it would have no obvious rhythmical structure 
 at all. But what is the smallest group ? Plainly 
 a dipody or group of two feet, — ^ — — , and 
 here we have a metrical element of great impor- 
 tance and of very wide application. A trochee 
 or iambus, shorter and made of unequal parts, 
 had not the same equilibrium and independence 
 as a dactyl. Two trochees or iambi were the 
 metrical unit : whence the names ' trimeter ' and 
 * tetrameter ' for lines of six and eight feet 
 respectively. The Romans did not apprehend 
 this so clearly, and called them ' senarii ' and
 
 214 LECTURES ON CLASSICAL SUBJECTS 
 
 'octonarii.' If trochees were taken singly, Kara 
 fxovoTToSiav, the effect would be one of mincing, 
 tripping little steps. A trochaic line is really 
 made up of dipodies ; and hence in every fourth 
 place a long syllable is admitted : 
 
 This is the most common form of trochaic 
 tetrameter, which in the Greek poets is usually 
 ' catalectic,' that is to say, the last foot is not 
 complete in sound or syllables, but is completed 
 by a short pause or rest denoted by a (the initial 
 letter of \eifxfxa, pause). The Greek poets gave 
 unity to the whole line by making the last foot 
 of all conspicuously different from the rest, by 
 'catalexis.' The Roman dramatic poets, less 
 sensitive to artistic structure, frequently write 
 non-catalectic 'octonarii.' The ' spondee ' is again 
 not a real spondee — still less so than the spondee 
 in dactylic hexameters. There is some evidence 
 to show that the Greeks regarded it not as 2:2 
 but as 2:li; it was fxera^u Suoiv \6yoiv yvwpifxoLv 
 — neither 2:2 nor 2:i, but between them. 
 
 A very little reflection and experiment will 
 show that in iambic verse the rule must be the 
 converse of that which is laid down for trochaic.
 
 THE METRICAL FORM OF POETRY 215 
 
 In the latter, the pure or normal foot must 
 
 come first, — ^ , not ■. If the structure 
 
 of iambic verse is to be made obvious to the 
 
 reader or hearer, the beginning must be ^— , 
 
 and not ^ . 
 
 Much of this discussion is very simple. The 
 whole of it is probably quite familiar to most 
 classical teachers, but they do not take the 
 trouble to put it simply, or it does not occur 
 to them that it need be set forth at all. Most 
 of it could surely be made plain to quite junior 
 schoolboys with the help of a blackboard ; and 
 I do not see why it should not interest them 
 as much as many things which they learn at 
 present. If an interest in metre could be excited 
 at an early stage, something would be done 
 towards abolishing the irrational, unscientific, 
 and inartistic practice of reading verse as if it 
 were prose, without any thought of its metrical 
 effect. I believe that this would be an important 
 improvement in classical education. It would 
 have to be accompanied by strict attention to 
 quantity — by which I do not mean insisting 
 that a boy shall be able to say whether a 
 syllable is long or short, but that he should 
 pronounce it from the first with its proper
 
 2i6 LECTURES ON CLASSICAL SUBJECTS 
 
 quantity, and should never hear it mispronounced 
 by his teacher. A syllable is long or short, 
 not either or both,^ and it is as easy to acquire 
 by ear the right pronunciation as the wrong 
 one. It is a perpetual mystery to me how 
 teachers contrive to leave their pupils in so 
 much doubt about quantities. The knowledge 
 of quantity possessed by many entrants at the 
 Universities — this applies to Scotland more strongly 
 than to England — is such as to suggest that they 
 have never heard a Latin or Greek word pronounced 
 at all — they have merely seen the words on 
 paper, and if marks of quantity were appended 
 they have ignored them as meaningless. 
 
 This is a paedagogic digression. I return to 
 the trochaic dipody and to an aspect of it 
 which does not belong to so early a stage in 
 classical study — which is in fact rather a specula- 
 tion than an axiom or a fact, a possible way 
 of effecting a transition from trochees to 
 another important class of metres, the Ionic. 
 
 ^ Of course there are certain syllables which, though normally 
 short, are sometimes long in certain elaborate forms of serious 
 poetry — short vowels before a mute and a liquid. But this is 
 an exception easily explained, didirp^wei has no place in Aristo- 
 phanes. ' Tenebrae,' 'patrem ' were unknown to comedy and ordi- 
 nary speech— they belonged to the strict, hellenising poets.
 
 THE METRICAL FORM OF POETRY 217 
 
 An ordinary trochaic dipody presumably has a 
 slightly stronger ictus on the first trochee than 
 on the second -^^ — ^. But what if we ex- 
 aggerate this ictus or displace it ? Let us 
 suppose that it may be very strong and may 
 fall on the second trochee : 
 
 And now read a piece of trochaic verse with this 
 
 ictus : 
 
 uxjiekev (T, (5 Tvcf)\€ IIAoiiTe, 
 
 fJ-ijTe yy fxy^r ev daXdcrcrr] 
 
 IxrjT €1' 7]Tr€ipu) (fiavrjvat, 
 
 dAAa Taprapov re vaiftv 
 
 Ka-^ipovra' Sta ere yap ttuvt' 
 
 ecrr' ev dvOpwiroLS kciku.. 
 
 If we put a very strong ictus on the first syllable 
 of IIAoi'Te, TV(f)\e UXovTe is not very different in 
 effect from rvcpXe UXovre (which is possible in 
 prosody, for the v is short by nature). Thus 
 
 comes into view as a substitute for 
 
 ■: and similarly for ■— — we might 
 
 have ^^ without any serious change in 
 
 the rhythmical effect. But if this be admitted, 
 we have arrived at one of the commonest and 
 most effective forms of Ionic verse, 'IowikoI 
 avaKXw/uLevoi, a minori. — ^ — ^|— w, is the
 
 2i8 LECTURES ON CLASSICAL SUBJECTS 
 
 metre of Anacreon's (yvix-KOTiKa^ and it is also 
 the first part of each Hne in Catullus' Attis, for it 
 was associated with Cybele as well as with Diony- 
 sus : ' super alta vectus Attis.' I do not put this 
 forward as a historical theory. It is perhaps no 
 more historical than Varro's fxerpa it pwroTuira. 
 But I do recommend it as a method of realising 
 what the effect of '1wviko\ avaKXco/uevoi was. We 
 have made the transition by wrecking the equili- 
 brium of a trochaic dipody — by throwing an 
 excessive weight into one scale. Plato in the 
 Republic speaks of ^da-eig, which belong to reck- 
 lessness, or frenzy^ : he does not say what 
 measures he has in view : but it is not difficult 
 to conjecture that Ionic measures would come 
 under this condemnation. They are associated 
 with revelry and religious or fanatic eWrao-i?. 
 Ionic is the prevailing rhythm in the lyrics of the 
 Bacchae. They have no place under the Spartan 
 regime of Plato's ideal state. Anacreon had 
 brought them to Athens in the time of the Pisis- 
 tratidae, and — so we are told by a scholiast on 
 the Prometheus — they interested Aeschylus. Cer- 
 tainly Aeschylus made an effective use of them, 
 
 "^ Rep. 400 B, {ix,iTa. Adfj-uvos ^ovXevaSfj-eda) rives dveXevOeplas Kal 
 v^peus fj fxavlas Kal dWrj^ KaKlas irpiwovaaL ^dcreis.
 
 THE METRICAL FORM OF POETRY 219 
 
 whether in the frenzy of protest against an 
 ancient and rigid dogma : 
 
 ^'lya 6' aAAcov fj,ov6(fip(ov ilfxl, to Sva-crefSe^ yap epyov — 
 
 or in the transition from the prosperity to the ruin 
 of Troy : 
 
 fj.eTafxav6dvova-a 8' v/xvov Uptdpov ttoXls yepata — 
 
 or in the tremulous lamentation of the Oceanides 
 over the fate of Prometheus : 
 
 (TTevii) ere ras ovXop.€va<i Tu\as, UpopLrjdiv — 
 
 or in the first lyric system of the Persae where 
 regular Ionics with their more confident and stately 
 movement {ireizkpaKev /uev 6 TrejOcreTrroXf? f'jS}] k.t.\.) 
 close with ai/aKXacri?, to be followed immediately 
 by trochaic verse in a very despondent tone : 
 
 ravrd p,ov p.eXay^^LTun' 
 cf)pr^v up.vcr(reTaL (pofSij). 
 
 But this discussion of the nature of Ionic verse 
 belongs strictly to the next section of my subject. 
 
 2. The Adaptation of Metre to Certain 
 Subjects or Emotions. 
 
 Some of the more obvious facts have been 
 collected and summarised in the preceding
 
 220 LECTURES ON CLASSICAL SUBJECTS 
 
 essay (p. 175). It remains to try to interpret 
 them : how far is it possible to say why a 
 particular metrical form belonged specially to 
 a particular theme ? It remains also to illus- 
 trate them in greater detail ; and here I think 
 instances can be found which must considerably 
 increase our admiration for the metrical skill 
 of the Greek poet. The Romans are, of course, 
 less original and subtle, and they sometimes 
 misused a metrical form. But some of the 
 Roman poets show a mastery of metre scarcely 
 inferior to that of the Greeks. 
 
 There are many passages in ancient writers, in 
 Plato and Aristotle, in Ouintilian, and others, 
 which touch upon the ^0o? of metres, their special 
 tone or significance : passages too which some- 
 times help us to explain why a metre had its 
 particular meaning or effect. And here we must 
 be careful at the outset to observe what it is 
 that the writer is comparing : for example, 
 various passages in which iambic and trochaic 
 effects are spoken of are not contrasts between 
 iambi and trochees in general, but between a 
 particular kind of iambic verse, the trimeter, and 
 a particular kind of trochaic verse, the tetra- 
 meter catalectic. It is easier to see how both of
 
 THE METRICAL FORM OF POETRY 221 
 
 these differ from the dactylic hexameter than to 
 apprehend exactly how the one differs from the 
 other. A dactyl is different in structure : it is 
 longer, and its parts are equally balanced : and 
 though Dionysius of Halicarnassus seems to say 
 {De Comp. Verb. 20) that the effect of dactyls in 
 recitation was very like that of trochees, we can 
 scarcely doubt but that the movement was slower 
 and the syllables more exactly measurable. 
 Whence Aristotle was justified in saying that 
 heroic verse was the most stately or stable 
 and the most massive of metres.^ Compared 
 with it, the iambic trimeter and trochaic tetra- 
 meter are stirring or exciting (KivtjriKa) : and the 
 one — the latter — is akin to dancing, the other is 
 practical, energetic, inspiring to action. Else- 
 where (C. iv.) he says that the iambic trimeter 
 approaches most closely to the tone of ordinary 
 talk or conversation, it is /uLuXia-Ta Xsktikov, illus- 
 trating this by the observation that accidental or 
 unintentional verse effects are much more often 
 iambic than dactylic. 
 
 All this is fairly plain and intelligible, and it 
 seems to hold good of Latin as well as of 
 Greek. No one can read a speech of Cicero 
 
 ■* Poetics, C. xxiv. aTaaLfjucTaTov Kal oyKuSearaToi'.
 
 222 LECTURES ON CLASSICAL SUBJECTS 
 
 without noticing, if he watches the rhythm, the 
 very frequent occurrence of Cretic and trochaic 
 
 effects __— or — ^ (venditant, venditabant). 
 
 Cretic, for our present inquiry and for the rhythm 
 of prose, is not vitally different from iambi and 
 trochees. The frequency of this rhythm in prose 
 may help to account for the frequent use of 
 Cretic and Bacchiac verse in the Roman 
 comedy : in Latin, these metres would be emi- 
 nently XeKTLKOL. The hexameter evidently was 
 not : it was the vehicle for the most exalted and 
 dignified poetry. When Archilochus brought 
 iambic verse into literature, he was taking up 
 a popular form of metre, and using it for 
 ordinary and unexalted purposes, for invective 
 and the expression of personal hostility. Hip- 
 ponax gave it a still more defiantly prosaic ring 
 by weighting the last foot and making the line 
 ' halt ' or ' limp.' But if we pursue the inquiry 
 beyond the limits of the classical languages, a 
 strange discrepance comes into view. The con- 
 trast does not hold in English. The verse of the 
 heroic epos is not dactylic, but iambic : attempts 
 to use the dactylic hexameter for such a purpose 
 have either signally failed or have met with 
 moderate and dubious success. And now in
 
 THE METRICAL FORM OF POETRY 223 
 
 view of this failure, a curious inference meets 
 us — the rhythm of everyday speech is dactyHc, 
 and is not trochaic. If this is the case, it is pro- 
 bably to be explained by the frequency of words 
 of one syllable, articles and prepositions, which 
 are pronounced very rapidly, and go to form 
 dactyls or anapaests. Besides this, the English 
 accent is so strong that a great many words of 
 three or more syllables are in effect dactylic. A 
 confirmation of the view that ordinary speech is 
 dactylic may be found in the comparative 
 success with which the hexameter has been used 
 for ordinary and not very serious topics in a 
 poem like the ' Bothie of Tober-na-Vuolich ' : the 
 English hexameter would have served for trans- 
 lating the Margites if that work of ' Homer ' 
 had been preserved : it would not serve equally 
 well for the Iliad. There are other curious 
 questions of the same kind to which it would 
 be difficult to find an answer. Why is the 
 normal iambic line in English one of five feet, 
 in Greek and Latin one of six ? Is this also 
 due, or due in part, to the frequency of short 
 words in English, words of one or of two syl- 
 lables ? — clearly there is a slight pause after each 
 word, and if on the average there are several
 
 224 LECTURES ON CLASSICAL SUBJECTS 
 
 more words in an English line, the total time of 
 the line and its general effect might be equivalent 
 to that of a line of six feet in a different 
 laneuag-e. In ancient versification, a line of five 
 feet is comparatively rare. It seems to occur ^ 
 in the Sapphic stanza, as written by Sappho, 
 in the first two lines of the Alcaic stanza, 
 and in ' hendecasyllabics ' (unless these be 
 really Ionics, ' commata Sotadeorum,' as Ouin- 
 tilian calls them). I touch upon these points 
 here because some of them will present them- 
 selves again when we come to consider the 
 Roman treatment of Greek metres. Horace's 
 caesura in the Sapphic line seems to show that 
 he was somehow repelled from treating it as a 
 single whole of five feet, and preferred to make 
 it 2|-f-2i, just as the hexameter is 2|-|-3|, or 
 
 The unequal division of the hexameter by 
 ' caesura ' leads us to the consideration of a 
 cognate line which is equally divided, by a 
 device for which it is convenient to use the dis- 
 tinct term 'diaeresis.' What is the so-called 
 ' pentameter,' and what is an elegiac couplet ? 
 The couplet is clearly a strophe or stanza on 
 
 1 But this would be disputed. See infra, pp. 236-8 and pp. 248-50.
 
 THE METRICAL FORM OF POETRY 225 
 
 a small scale — a strophe consisting of four KwKa, 
 two in each line or a-rlyo^;. It is a modification 
 of the hexameter, and a variation in the direc- 
 tion of lyric poetry. The second line is quite 
 different in effect from the first, for its move- 
 ment is twice arrested by ' catalexis ' : and the 
 fourth KwXov is different from the others (for it 
 admits dactyls only) — a principle of construction 
 which we have already met with and which is 
 of frequent application in larger lyric structures. 
 Being lyric in nature, elegiac verse frequently 
 had a musical accompaniment — Theognis (1. 241) 
 speaks of avXia-Koi — but at a quite early date it 
 must have begun to be merely read or recited 
 and not sung: for if it had been always sung, 
 there would have been no need for an invariable 
 diaeresis or word-ending in the middle of the 
 verse — a singer's voice can prolong a syllable, 
 as in the line 
 
 w <^tAos w cf)i\e /3aK-x^iL€, Trot otoTroAeis ; 
 
 but such a prolongation is quite unnatural in 
 what is merely recited or spoken. Of the 
 nature and effect of the verse, ancient writers 
 give what seems a substantially true and valid 
 account. According to Horace (A. P. 75), it
 
 226 LECTURES ON CLASSICAL SUBJECTS 
 
 was first used for the expression of grief 
 ' querimonia,' by which he probably means a 
 6pi]vo9 or lament for the dead : similarly we are 
 told (in a passage quoted from Didymus irepi 
 TTOirjTwv) that for this purpose poets appended 
 to the hexameter a line which did not 
 keep pace with it, but languished and waned 
 as if in sympathy with an ebbing life.^ But 
 soon this verse came to be used in other ways 
 and to express the joy and exultation of suc- 
 cess. Modern theories are not dissimilar. Its 
 double aspect has been traced (by O. Immich) 
 to the use of the flute in the Carian worship of 
 Aphrodite, where first grief had to be expressed 
 for the vanishing of Adonis (acpavicriuog), and 
 then joy for his restoration (evpea-ig). Another 
 view is that elegy began in a cry of alarm 
 ' hostis adest, eia ' the enemy is at the gates, a 
 cry raised by the women and uttered with tearing 
 of hair and wild gestures. The elegy and the 
 flute certainly seem to come to the Greeks 
 from Asia Minor : but in passing from the 
 
 ^ Sdev irevTa/jLerpov T(p 7jpii}iKcp ffvvyJTTTOv ovx ofiodpa/JiovvTa ry tov 
 TTpoTipov owd/xei., dXX' olov (TvueKirviovTO, /cat <rvvaTroa§evvv[j.evov rats 
 TOV TeKevT-quavTos rvxo-i-^- With ovx o/xodpafMoOvTa we may com- 
 pare Statius' phrase, ' heroos gressu truncare tenores ' {Sz/vae, 
 V. iii. 99).
 
 THE METRICAL FORM OF POETRY 227 
 
 excitable barbarian to the Greek, the measure 
 comes to be regulated and tranquillised, it loses 
 this character of frenzy and wild alarm. So it 
 is recorded of Solon that he prohibited exces- 
 sive lamentation at funerals and the use of 
 strains specially composed for the occasion 
 {izeiroLriixkva fxr\ Opijveh). In Callinus and Tyr- 
 taeus, the stirring call to battle is still heard 
 (jULe-^pig Teu KaTOLKeicrde ;), and in Mimnermus, the 
 verse is the vehicle of passion, though it is 
 rather the voluptuous passion of the Ionian than 
 the fire of Sappho or Alcaeus. But in other 
 poets the tone is much more placid : Solon and 
 Theognis expound in elegiac verse their views 
 on political and social questions. 
 
 It did not occur to the Greeks of the best 
 age that a metre of this kind could be used 
 for a lengthy narrative. Aristotle says in the 
 Poetics that no one would think of composing 
 an epic story in any metre but the heroic 
 hexameter. Not very long after his death this 
 canon was to be violated. Callimachus, Her- 
 mesianax, and i\lexander the Aetolian (quoted 
 by Parthenius for the Tale of Antheus), set the 
 example of narrative in elegiacs, an example 
 followed by Propertius and Ovid. If not a
 
 228 LECTURES ON CLASSICAL SUBJECTS 
 
 misuse or mistake, this was certainly the trans- 
 ference of a metre to a purpose for which it 
 had not been intended. And Ovid, following 
 Callimachus, made another transference, or mis- 
 use, of the same metre, when he used it for an 
 '/oyu^o?, or personal lampoon, in the Ibis. But 
 the chief use which the Alexandrians made of 
 elegiac verse was legitimate enough and in 
 keeping with its origin and nature : they used it 
 for those erotic or romantic strains, ' molles ' or 
 ' flebiles modi ' which in some degree repelled 
 the more robust and unsentimental spirit of 
 Horace.^ 
 
 ■' ' Neu miserabiles decantes elegos,' Odes, I. xxxiii. 2 — no more of 
 these plaintive and pathetic strains ! Horace is here addressing 
 Tibullus. In ii. ix. he addresses a similar exhortation to another 
 elegiac poet, Valgius (1. 9, tu semper urges flebilibus modis 
 Mysten ademptum). 
 
 As to Horace and Propertius, I cannot think that there is 
 sufficient evidence for a serious feud or rupture, as is sometimes 
 assumed. In the principal passage which bears on this ^Epp. 11. 
 ii. 99) Horace is laughing at the mutual admiration of poets in 
 general, and it is characteristic of him that he includes himself 
 ('discedo Alcaeus '). The other evidence adduced by Mr. Post- 
 gate in his Introduction to Propertius (pp. xxxiii. and xxxiv.) 
 seems inconclusive. But it is clear that Horace had little sym- 
 pathy with the Alexa.ndrian vein of elegy. He alludes only 
 once, and not very respectfully, to Catullus and Calvus. He 
 might have written elegiac verse in the Epodes — Archilochus 
 had written elegiacs — but if he has a hexameter in a couplet, it
 
 THE METRICAL FORM OF POETRY 229 
 
 Adaptation of form to subject or matter is a 
 general characteristic of the Greek poetry of the 
 best age, and it is not limited to these regular 
 and familiar types of verse. In lyric systems it 
 assumes still more subtle forms. The early 
 Greek poet was a musical composer as well ^ 
 and he handled metre as a modern composer 
 handles music, constructing in a strophe or in a 
 whole stasimon a complex fabric in which the 
 metre changed with every change of thought or 
 feeling. Many devices, many possible variations 
 were at his disposal. Lyric poets like Alcman 
 and Stesichorus prepared the way for the choric 
 systems of the tragedians. I have already 
 referred to the effective use which Aeschylus 
 makes of Ionics, a metre which he perhaps 
 
 is followed by an iambic senarius or some other line. Probablj' 
 the only thing of which he approved in the ' cantores ' was the 
 care and patience they bestowed upon their works : ' nonunique 
 prematur in annum ' — nine years was the precise time spent by 
 Cinna upon his Smyrna. Suetonius says that he has seen elegies 
 ascribed to Horace {'venerunt in manus meas elegi sub titulo 
 eius') : if these were not spurious, as Suetonius thinks, they must 
 have represented a transitory phase in his poetic development 
 and one of which his maturer judgment disapproved. 
 
 ^ Sometimes he also composed the movements of the chorus as 
 well: Athenaeus (i. 21) quotes a passage of Aristophanes in which 
 Aeschylus is made to say : 
 
 Totcrt x^P"'' ai)T6s rci crx'^Mar' i-Kolovv.
 
 230 LECTURES ON CLASSICAL SUBJECTS 
 
 derived directly from Anacreon (p. 218). In 
 other poets, there are cases where the rhythm 
 becomes Ionic for a moment, when the theme 
 suggests it. In the Rhesus} the mention of the 
 wine-cup brings with it Anacreontic verse, 1. 363 : 
 
 tTTtSe^iats afiiXXais. 
 
 In the Antigone the turmoil of battle (139) 
 and the revelry of the victors, led by Dionysus 
 (153), suggest to the poet a choriambic 
 rhythm : Dionysus, again, seems to cause a 
 momentary deviation into Ionics in a well- 
 known passage from a dithyramb of Pindar 
 (though the text is somewhat doubtful) : 
 
 CTTt TO I' KMrcroSeTav Bi.ov. 
 
 Another measure associated with Bacchic revels 
 was a dactylic tetrapody, to which a peculiarly 
 rapid movement was imparted by making the 
 last foot a dactyl, and the rhythm hypermetric 
 or continuous from one line to the next : 
 
 at/xa TpayoKTovoi', w/xotjbayov yo.piv — 
 
 ^ I have never been convinced that the Rhesus is not a work 
 of Euripides, composed at an early period of his life when the 
 Athenians were interested in Thrace and its silver- mines (t'^s 
 inrapyvpov x^o'^os, 1. 970).
 
 THE METRICAL FORM OF POETRY 231 
 
 and in using this rhythm in the Bacchae (139, 
 162), Euripides had a precedent in a passage 
 of Alcman, still extant, where a Bacchant is 
 described milking a lioness (jroXKaKi S' ei/ 
 Kopvcbah opecov, oku k.t.X.). In another line (157), 
 
 €via Tov €viov dyaWoficvaL Seov, 
 
 Euripides appears to have further accelerated the 
 movement by admitting three very short syllables 
 in the place of two, an effect which might be 
 
 designated by the symbol cr:3t> • ^or it does 
 
 not seem at all probable that the first two feet are 
 
 Cretic {i.e. • ,_--^). It is only, I believe, by 
 
 studying the character of metrical forms, their 
 significance and the occasions to which they are 
 appropriate, that progress can be made in under- 
 standing the lyric systems of the Greek poets : 
 and it seems equally clear that only by such 
 exposition or interpretation can their metrical 
 structure be made interesting to the learner. The 
 arithmetical symmetry of J. H. Schmidt's Perio- 
 donietry is to a large extent illusory, and has 
 often resulted in putting into one group elements 
 which are disparate or incongruous. In a recent 
 article in the Journal of Hellenic Studies Mr. W. 
 Headlam has rightly insisted upon the importance
 
 232 LECTURES ON CLASSICAL SUBJECTS 
 
 of the other line of inquiry. He is inclined, I 
 think, to go too far in recognising echoes or 
 recurrences of metrical effect : to regard as re- 
 currence, for example, the repetition of -^ 
 
 though it is in one case in the form — ^ , and 
 
 in the other — ^ (^pvaroKOjua? ^AttoWwv- 
 
 lepwva yepaipei). 
 
 There is another field in which adaptation 
 of metre to theme may be traced. So far 
 we have been considering cases where a 
 different metre is introduced, to answer to a 
 change of topic. But there were also certain 
 devices — resolution, catalexis, and syncope — 
 which could be applied to almost any metre 
 and which might materially alter its character 
 and effect. Trochaic verse is described in 
 general, we have seen, as KivrjTiKou, op-^^rja-riKov 
 in its effect, or even as KopSaKiKcioTepov. But 
 this character disappears when syncope is 
 frequent. Thus the despondent trochees in 
 the Persae already quoted (p. 219) are cata- 
 lectic at first, but as the feeling of doubt 
 and despair grows in force, and disaster looms 
 nearer, syncopated trochees appear : 
 
 /ivj TToAts 7rv6't]-TaL Kivav-Spov jxiy' acTTv 2ovo"tSos. 
 Not unlike this is a metrical effect used by
 
 777^ METRICAL FORM OF POETRY 233 
 
 the same poet in the first lyric system of the 
 Agamemnon^ where syncope near the beginning 
 of the line serves to depict a desperate conflict 
 of motives : ' the line too labours ' and seems 
 to have difficulty in beginning to move : 
 
 €7rel S' avay — Ka.% eSv XiiraSvov, 
 
 While syncope is thus appropriate in the case 
 of a mental struggle and a serious dilemma, 
 the opposite metrical effect was sometimes 
 used to express mere indecision or hesitation : 
 
 TTorepa irpos ockovs — - 
 
 quid igitur fdciam ? non earn ne nunc quidem ? 
 
 Such illustrations might be multiplied inde- 
 finitely. But to deal with them fully would 
 be to write a complete treatise on metre. 
 My object is only to illustrate some principles 
 and not to elaborate a systematic theory. 
 Before passing, however, to the subject of 
 Roman metrical efforts, I feel constrained to 
 touch upon a question raised by the mention 
 of ' syncope ' : it is a question which will 
 arise again, or perhaps receive a partial and 
 tentative answer, when we come to consider 
 the Asclepiadean verse of Horace.
 
 234 LECTURES ON CLASSICAL SUBJECTS 
 
 How, or in what notation, are we to describe 
 the metre of the line kirei ^ h.va'yKa'i eov \€7raovov ? 
 It may be written either thus : 
 
 or thus : __ | __ [ __ | — _ ! — -.^ 
 The latter scheme gives us an iambus followed by 
 a trochee : and we may discuss at the same time 
 whether in other metres we must be prepared to 
 recognise a trochee followed by an iambus. The 
 KwXov or group of feet apia-rov ju-ev uSwp 6 Se may 
 be written either as ^ ; i— | — - ^ | — — j — a or as 
 
 l_^|__| . The dactyl in the former 
 
 scheme is the so-called ' cyclic ' dactyl, a term 
 for which, it must be admitted, the evidence is 
 very slight and inconclusive (Dion. De Conip. 
 Verb, 17): it is a dactyl with the time of a 
 trochee, a SaKTvXo^ rpla-tj/no? or Tpi-^povo?, not 
 T€Tpd(Tr]/uL09 like the normal dactyl which can 
 be resolved into four short syllables. What is 
 the difference between the two notations, and 
 which is to be preferred ? The former allows no 
 such thing as the juxtaposition of iambus and 
 trochee or trochee and iambus, having recourse to 
 anacrusis and syncope in the one case and to the 
 
 ^ I leave untouched here the question whether the last two 
 syllables are —^ or I | — a, one foot or two.
 
 THE METRICAL FORM OF POETRY 235 
 
 ' cyclic ' dactyl in the other, to explain the facts — 
 the facts being a certain arrangerhent of long and 
 short syllables. We have distinct evidence that 
 the ancients recognised, for rhythm and music, a 
 long syllable which was longer than an ordinary 
 long. It is not disputed that syncope of some 
 kind did exist : and indeed it seems undeniable, 
 when we contemplate such cases as this in an 
 Ionic passage : 
 
 A^vo5£o■n^a) a-^hia tto/o^/zov a/xet^as 'A6afiavT-i8os "EA.Aa? 
 
 (where the syncopated foot or protracted syllable 
 is I 1), or this in a passage of pure trochees : 
 
 pva-i/Soifjiov 'EA-Aav-wv ayaA/xa Saifxovutv 
 
 (where syncope occurs twice, 1 |i ). 
 
 The history of the matter is briefly this. 
 During last century a series of metricians strove 
 to rationalise Greek lyric verse with the help of 
 the rhythmic notation of modern music. They 
 refused to recognise an ascending or iambic 
 rhythm : iambi are simply trochees with anacrusis 
 
 J^ IJ J^ IJ J^ ^^'-•' '^^'^ anapaests are dactyls with 
 anacrusis : the syllables — ^-_— are to be con- 
 strued as ~- I ^ and not as — _ | ^— . Apel, 
 
 Bellermann, J. H. Schmidt, Westphal and Christ all 
 adopted this method, and it obtained wide currency
 
 236 LECTURES ON CLASSICAL SUBJECTS 
 
 in England and America. Recently a different 
 tendency has shown itself, and it is associated 
 with names so distinguished — Weil, Blass, Wila- 
 mowitz-Mollendorf — that to doubt or to dissent 
 seems hazardous. Briefly, the ' recentiores ' have 
 
 revived the choriambus and the antispast (^ ^~)} 
 
 They do not deny that there was such a thing as 
 syncope. They do not even deny that there was 
 such a thing as a ^a/cTi;Xo9 t piu^ifxo'i : they recog- 
 nise it in a line like Kai rt? kit ecryaTlaiariv o'Ikci?, 
 the last line of an Alcaic stanza, or in ai/Tirv-Tra S' 
 €7ri ya ireare ravTaXo^Oei?. Prof. Gleditsch at all 
 events, in the third edition of his Metrik, seems to 
 admit that such a dactyl must be assumed in 
 these cases. But — and here it becomes difficult 
 to assent without reservation — the first line of an 
 Alcaic stanza is to be scanned thus : 
 
 ' Non nostrum est tantas componere lites ' — 
 I merely offer one or two suggestions which 
 may help to explain the conflict of opinion. 
 Consider the so-called ' antispast ' or take the 
 conjunction of two choriambi — _^— |— ^^— , 
 impia fallacum honiinuiii. Is it possible to pass 
 
 ^ Some of them still speak disrespectfully of the antispast, but I 
 think that in fact and in principle they resuscitate it.
 
 THE METRICAL FORM OF POETRY 237 
 
 from ^— to without some kind of pause ? 
 
 Can the opposite movement begin at once ? 
 And if a word does not end at the place, must 
 not the voice dwell a little on the last syllable 
 of the iambus ? The rationalising school of 
 metricians describe such a choriambus as a 
 dactyl followed by a syncopated foot, ___i_ : 
 perhaps this is after all merely a different way 
 of describing the same sounds. I think it must 
 be granted that it is probably Jiot the ancient 
 way — tradition is in favour of the ' antispast.' 
 But what this amounts to is that the ancient 
 notation was cumbrous and imperfect : not so 
 simple in principle or so adaptable to all cases 
 as that of the modern musician. And perhaps 
 we may go a little further and say that some- 
 thing like what the modern scheme gives us 
 may have been felt by the ancient poet or 
 composer, may have been half-consciously in his 
 mind, though he would not have written out 
 the metre in that form.^ I do not know whether 
 any of the ' recentiores ' have tried to compose 
 
 ^ The shortening of a long final vowel belonged, it is admitted, 
 to epic or dactylic verse : yet Timotheus has it ' in dem schein- 
 baren Daktylus des Glykoneus ' (142, 144, 149). If the dactyl 
 was only 'apparent,' we have to contemplate the scansion ivda \ 
 Kdcro I yttat oin | rpoi dp \ vlOwv k.t.X. (149).
 
 238 LECTURES ON CLASSICAL SUBJECTS 
 
 Alcaic verse on the scheme given above, or to 
 write Sapphics with this scheme in mind : 
 
 I do not think that it would be very easy. And 
 what account can be given, on this view, of 
 the symmetry and the general effect of the 
 Alcaic stanza ? The effect seems to me to 
 depend on this, that the third and fourth lines 
 together repeat on a larger scale the movement 
 which is given twice, separately, in the first line 
 and the second line : 
 
 Here there is, in the middle of the line, a tran- 
 sition from trochee to dactyl, but there is only 
 one dactyl, preceded by two trochees. The third 
 and fourth lines expand or duplicate this effect : 
 
 According to Prof Gleditsch the scansion is 
 
 In these choriambs and diiambi it is somewhat 
 difficult to trace any obvious and effective move- 
 ment. 
 
 Some of these questions will meet us again
 
 THE METRICAL FORM OF POETRY 239 
 
 in considering the versification of Horace. I 
 leave them for the present, conceding that 
 the school of Apel and Schmidt has probably- 
 gone too far in the other direction — too far, I 
 think, in trying to construe all iambi as 
 trochees with anacrusis : it would have been 
 safer to limit the method to purely lyric or 
 melic verse, which was certainly sung and 
 had a musical accompaniment. 
 
 3. The Treatment of Greek Metres 
 BY the Roman Poets. 
 
 The transference of a metre to a new 
 language may vitally alter its character and 
 effect, as seems to be the case when the 
 dactylic hexameter is transplanted from Greek 
 and Latin to English. Latin did not differ 
 so widely from Greek as to produce a result 
 like this : the effect of a metre was not totally 
 obscured or inverted : but it differed widely 
 enough to make it necessary that Greek metres 
 should be considerably modified when they 
 came to be cultivated on Italian soil : and 
 the desirable modifications could be found only 
 by prolonged experiment and effort. In the
 
 240 LECTURES ON CLASSICAL SUBJECTS 
 
 case of the hexameter, for example, the 
 tentative period extended to about a century 
 and a half, from the first introduction of the 
 measure by Ennius to the composition of the 
 Eclogues of Virgil. The changes consisted 
 largely in rejecting things which had been 
 perfectly legitimate and effective in Greek. 
 And here again (as in touching upon English 
 verse) we may be asked the difficult question, 
 why such changes had to be made. The 
 answer in many cases would turn upon the 
 nature and incidence of the Latin accent : in 
 the period with which we are concerned, the 
 accent fell with mechanical regularity on the 
 last syllable but one or the last but two, 
 according as the penultimate was long or 
 short, never (or practically never) on the last. 
 And it was a strong accent. It could not be 
 entirely ignored : by coinciding with the ictus 
 it might make the metrical structure too 
 obvious : or by diverging from ictus, obscure 
 the metre too much. The former possibility 
 accounts, I think, for some peculiarities of the 
 Latin hexameter, the latter for the structure 
 of early iambic and trochaic verse. 
 
 The Greek accent, it is generally agreed,
 
 THE METRICAL FORM OF POETRY 241 
 
 was a variation in pitch or in the musical 
 
 quality of a sound, the Latin accent was a 
 
 stress-accent. In Greek, quality and quantity 
 
 or duration were kept quite distinct — accent, 
 
 in the classical period and down to Babrius, 
 
 has no provable effect upon metrical structure.^ 
 
 But the Latin accent, though a stress-accent 
 
 and less easily detached from quantity, was 
 
 not so strong as the English accent, which 
 
 dominates and obscures quantity altogether. 
 
 The Latin language had in it the potentiality 
 
 of strictly quantitative verse, and this was 
 
 elicited by Greek influence, and especially by 
 
 Ennius' introduction of the hexameter. The 
 
 Latin accent was not strong enough to make 
 
 an accented syllable count as long : it was 
 
 strong enough to make an unaccented syllable, 
 
 though long, take the place of a short one. 
 
 Obviously, with a strong accent, an iambic 
 
 or trochaic effect can be obtained without any 
 
 short syllables at all : 
 
 ' turn coniecturam postulat pacem petens, 
 ut se edoceret postulans ApoUinem, 
 quo sese vertant tdntae sortes somnium.'- 
 
 ^An idea started by Ritschl that the fragment of a song fiXei, \xvKix, 
 &\ei K.T.X. is accentual verse has been generally rejected as illusory. 
 * Ennius, Alexander. Somnium = somniorum. 
 
 Q
 
 242 LECTURES ON CLASSICAL SUBJECTS 
 
 Accent and ictus coincide in the last line, and 
 its effect is not so very different from that of 
 the line which precedes it and which conforms 
 to Greek metrical principles in having an iambus 
 in the second and fourth places. So, in the 
 first line, the spondee in the second place is 
 rendered innocuous or inconspicuous by accent 
 (' coniecturam ' would presumably have a slight 
 subsidiary accent on its first syllable). To a 
 Greek ear, the third line would be intolerably 
 heavy : by the Augustan age Roman poets 
 had acquired a similar sensitiveness to quantity, 
 and lines like these of Ennius, 
 
 ' in scaenam missos cum magno pondere versus,' 
 
 they condemned as crude and inartistic. But 
 ' quo sese vertant ' was not inartistic when it 
 was written. The early dramatic poets as a 
 rule keep ictus and accent together : they do 
 not put ' coniecturam ' into a verse in such a 
 position that the ictus would fall on the second 
 and fourth syllables (' coniecturam '), and in 
 an ' irrational ' Cretic foot the middle syllable 
 is seldom an accented one. These poets were 
 unduly depreciated in the later age. But no 
 doubt there was much that was inartistic in
 
 THE METRICAL FORM OF POETRY 243 
 
 their work, much that was crude and tentative, 
 and due to an imperfect apprehension of metrical 
 structure. A simple instance of ignorance of 
 structure may be found in the resolution of the 
 penultimate syllable of an iambic ' septenarius,' 
 a syllable which was properly T|o/(r//yuo? and not 
 resolvable into tzvo shorts.^ 
 
 Little progress seems to have been made 
 between the time of Ennius and that of Cicero. 
 Terence must be allowed to have achieved per- 
 fection of form in comedy ; for in comedy the 
 old type of verse, with spondees in the second 
 and fourth places, was appropriate enough, 
 approaching as it did to the speech of every- 
 day life. But Lucilius was not an artist in 
 language or metre ; new forms of verse were 
 hardly attempted : and the later tragedians did 
 not lift tragedy out of the groove in which it 
 ran, it was still heavy in metre and somewhat 
 turgid in language. In Cicero's time there is 
 renewed activity. In the case of most metres, 
 
 ' ' Ut earn intro consolerque earn, no sic se excruciet ammi. 
 
 PI. Rtidens, 399. 
 
 The non-cataleclic ' octonarius ' has already been mentioned 
 (p. 214). In anapaests, the Roman poet was less careful than 
 the Greek to give unity to a group of lines : he did not make 
 the last catalectic.
 
 244 LECTURES ON CLASSICAL SUBJECTS 
 
 it remained for the Augustan poets to add the 
 last touches and attain to unfailing grace and 
 finish. But the preceding generation approached 
 very near to perfection of metrical form. Cicero 
 himself did much for the hexameter : the in- 
 fluence of his Aratea upon his contemporaries 
 Catullus and Lucretius has often been pointed 
 out. The hexameter of this period is much 
 smoother and more graceful than that of Ennius. 
 But it tended to monotony in form,^ and was 
 not free from affectation : and Virgil had still 
 to reveal the art of writing a sentence or 
 period of moderate length and of a form suited 
 to verse : 
 
 'cedet et ipse mari vector | nee nautica pinus 
 mutabit merces | omnis feret omnia tellus.' 
 
 In the preceding generation, the 'caesura' was 
 less skilfully used and a sentence was often too 
 long, spreading with its grammatical ramifications 
 over many verses, a fault which may be observed 
 in the very first sentence of Catullus' Epyllion. 
 Elegiac verse, hitherto hardly used except for 
 epigrams and very short pieces, was now culti- 
 vated more carefully, and the way was prepared 
 for Tibullus and Propertius. Metrically, the 
 
 ^See footnote, p. 124.
 
 THE METRICAL FORM OF POETRY 245 
 
 elegiac couplet had not advanced quite so far 
 as the hexameter. A line like 
 
 'qui modo me unum atque unicum amicum habuit' 
 
 is cruder and more formless than the hexameter 
 of its time. Catullus was here ' durus ' or ' duri- 
 usculus ' — rather harsh and unfinished in his 
 manner.^ Varro made many experiments in 
 metre, in his Saturae, and new provinces in the 
 realm of metre were conquered — notably by 
 Catullus in his handling of ' hendecasyllabic ' 
 verse, a measure which, though used occasionally 
 by a few Greek poets, had enjoyed no great 
 vogue in Greece, as far as we know. The 
 
 ^ ' durus ' when applied to a writer or his style had often a 
 very simple and superficial sense. It meant harshness or awk- 
 wardness in the placing of words. Quintilian, for example, quotes 
 a sentence of Cicero's ending in the words ' in duas divisam esse 
 partes,' and remarks that 'in duas partes divisam esse' would 
 have been correct, but 'durum et incomptum ' (viii. vi. 65). 
 Gallus, as'an elegiac poet, is 'durior' (than TibuUus and Proper- 
 tius), X. i. 93. The elder Pliny (Nat. Hist. Praef. i) thinks that 
 in hendecasyllabics Catullus was rather harsher, rather less graceful 
 ('duriusculus') than he would have liked Veranius and Fabullus 
 to think him : and to remove a defect of this kind — ' ut obiter 
 emolliam CatuUum conterraneum meum ' — Pliny would say ' nugas 
 esse aliquid meas putarc ' rather than 'meas esse aliquid putare 
 nugas.' Here ' mollis' appears as the opposite of 'durus.' Catullus 
 and his friends certainly aimed at being ' moUes,' and aimed at it 
 with a large measure of success.
 
 246 LECTURES ON CLASSICAL SUBJECTS 
 
 ' scazon ' of Hipponax, and the stanza consisting 
 of three or four Glyconic lines followed by a 
 Pherecratean, were other metres successfully dealt 
 with by Catullus. Horace avoids them all 
 (except that he does use the Glyconic and 
 Pherecratean lines, in different combinations). 
 
 The mention of Varro and of hendecasylla- 
 bics brings us to what is important for the 
 history of metre at Rome — the influence of 
 metrical theories on metrical practice. In the 
 days of Sappho and Alcaeus theory hardly- 
 existed : but since that time philosophers and 
 musicians and grammarians had written and 
 speculated much about rhythm and metre: and the 
 learned poet of Rome, the ' doctus vates,' could 
 not ignore their theories ; he often proceeded upon 
 theoretical grounds, and was deliberate and con- 
 scious in his metrical effects. This is eminently 
 true of Horace, but it is also true of Catullus. 
 The metrical theory adopted by Varro, and 
 later by Caesius Bassus, was that of the deri- 
 vation of all metres from two primary types — 
 a theory probably originated by Heraclides Pon- 
 ticus, a pupil of Plato. The two types were 
 revealed to mankind by Apollo, in the simple 
 form of u] TTcudu thrice repeated — the first syllable
 
 THE METRICAL FORM OF POETRY 247 
 
 of each word may be either long or short, and 
 if long, we have a spondaic hexameter, if 
 short, an iambic senarius. From these, other 
 metres were obtained by ' adiectio ' or ' detractio,' 
 or some similar modification. The hendeca- 
 syllabic or Phalaecean line was compounded of 
 both ; it consisted of the first ' penthemimeres ' 
 
 of a hexameter ( |___|_j ' cui dono lepi- 
 
 dum ') and the first ' penthemimeres ' of a senarius 
 (--— I ^— I ^, ' novum libellum '). The Glyconic 
 and Pherecratean lines were ingeniously extracted 
 from a single hexameter at one blow, 
 
 'cui non dictus Hylas puer|aut Latonia Delos.' 
 
 When the first part of the line is cut away and 
 becomes a separate verse, the last syllable of 
 course becomes a ' syllaba anceps,' puer. 
 
 But if these three metres, Phalaecean, Glyconic, 
 and Pherecratean, were thus connected with the 
 hexameter, an inference could be drawn, and 
 an important one for metrical practice. The 
 first two syllables should both be long : the 
 so-called ' basis ' must be a spondee, for an 
 iambus or a trochee has no place in a dactylic 
 hexameter. Catullus admits a trochee or 
 iambus : Horace does not — in the metres of
 
 248 LECTURES ON CLASSICAL SUBJECTS 
 
 this type which he uses, Horace regularly 
 begins with a spondee. Martial follows Horace 
 in principle : in hendecasyllabics he invariably 
 has a spondee in the first place. What then 
 was the hendecasyllabic line, or what did 
 Catullus suppose it to be ? Most metricians 
 of last century would answer the former question 
 by saying without hesitation : ' it is a logaoedic 
 pentapody.' But we have seen that this use 
 of ' logaoedic ' has recently been called in 
 question : ' logaoedic,' it is contended, was really 
 applied only to a line like cS hih. rcov OvpiScou 
 KoXov eiu^XeTTOicra, where two or three dactyls 
 are followed by trochees. Is this contention 
 to be admitted, and is the ' cyclic ' dactyl to be 
 abandoned in most of the cases where it has 
 been assumed ? I think we must be prepared 
 to abandon it, when the opposite theory gives 
 a really natural and effective scheme. I have 
 argued above (p. 238) that, in the case of the 
 Alcaic stanza, it does not do so, but rather 
 disguises and obscures the effect of the whole. 
 Hendecasyllabic verse, however, can be read 
 easily and effectively as Ionic, 
 
 ' cui dono lepidum novum libellum,'
 
 THE METRICAL FORM OF POETRY 249 
 
 and there is a good deal of evidence to show 
 that the ancients really felt the verse to be 
 Ionic and described it as such. Quintilian says 
 that Phalaecei are ' commata Sotadeorum ' — a 
 Sotadean verse is an Ionic tetrameter catalectic, 
 admitting araVXacrt? or a ditrochaeus, thus : 
 
 If we begin at the point indicated by a dotted 
 line, after the third syllable, we have exactly 
 ' meds esse aliquid putare nugas.' Further evi- 
 dence has been collected by Wilamowitz v. 
 Moellendorff in a paper ' De versu Phalaeceo,' 
 which he contributed to the Melanges Weil. 
 The Christian bishop Synesius, it is there shown, 
 composes a hymn in which regular and unmis- 
 takable Ionics occur along with ' hendecasyllabics ': 
 
 (7T€(fiavwa-(jD ere veois avOea-iv v/j-viov, 
 ov (SovXrjs Trarptas a^/Dacrros ciSts 
 dyvioa-TOJV dvtSei^e TratSa koAttwv, 
 
 where the first line is ^^ ^ ^^ . 
 
 Was this then Catullus' view ? Possibly it was. 
 An iambic ' basis ' is quite consistent with it, 
 for the first foot in an Ionic series was some- 
 times w. ('lavwv yap a7rt}vpa,' laK-^' to TroXvTijULrjr' 
 
 eV eSpai? k.t.X.). A trochee is more difficult ; we
 
 2 50 LECTURES ON CLASSICAL SUBJECTS 
 
 have to assume that 
 of „ : 
 
 ■ ^— may take the place 
 
 (fiiXraO' 'Ap|/xoSt' ovTi\7rov Tedvr)Ka<;, 
 
 like 
 
 eXOe Toi'S' dva Aet/xwva xopd'cwi' (Ar. Frogs, 326). 
 
 But at this point we may be inclined to ask 
 whether there did not perhaps exist after all a 
 logaoedic pentapody (for the third and fourth 
 lines of the Athenian <tkoKi6v are not Ionic, 
 and a ' hendecasyllabic ' line sometimes occurs 
 in tragic lyrics in a context where we do not 
 look for Ionics, e.g. Eur. Orestes, 833, % jmarpo- 
 KTovov al/ma x^/°^' OecrOai) ; whether Catullus may 
 not have thought of his verse in that way : 
 and whether Ionic scansion, involving as it does 
 a strong ictus in three places, 
 
 ' cui dono lepidum novum libellum ' 
 
 really gives us the effect which the metre had 
 for the Romans. Was it not more tranquil ? 
 Are we justified in finding in it the perturbed 
 and perturbing movement of Ionics ? No doubt 
 Catullus expressed in hendecasyllabics the fervour 
 of his passion for Lesbia — any metre is capable 
 of varied use and diverse tones ; but it is difficult 
 to believe that pieces like ' Marrucine Asini ' or
 
 THE METRICAL FORM OF POETRY 251 
 
 ' Cenabis bene, mi Fabulle apud me ' were de- 
 liberately and consciously composed in a rhythm 
 which was appropriate in a passage like this : 
 
 ' quonam cruenta maenas 
 praeceps amore saevo 
 rapitur? quod impotenti 
 faciniis parat furore ? ' ^ 
 
 Catullus is often contrasted with Horace as 
 the inspired poet with the deliberate artist, the 
 fxaviKo^ with the evcpvi'/g. But the contrast must 
 not be pressed too far. He belonged to a 
 group of poets who aimed at learning and 
 accuracy : and in metrical matters he is often 
 quite like other Roman poets^ — ^that is, tentative, 
 careful, and even artificial. In the 55th poem, 
 for example, he seems to be making a deliberate 
 experiment in metre : ' oramus si forte non 
 molestum est ' — here, and here only, he allows a 
 long syllable to take the place of the two short 
 syllables of a hendecasyllabic line,^ 
 
 ^ Seneca, Medea, \. 849. 
 
 ^ L. Mliller thinks that the frequent spondees have a special 
 significance : ' bene exprimitur, quantis molestiis aerumnisque 
 conflictatus sit poeta in quaerendo Camerio ' {De Ke Melnca, 
 p. 182). 
 
 Similar, but more isolated — a dtrai, \iy6nevov or rather iiira^ 
 tjiddfitvov — is the spondaic Pherecratean in Ixi. 25 :
 
 252 LECTURES ON CLASSICAL SUBJECTS 
 
 It is reasonable, however, to regard Horace 
 as more deliberate, more conscious, more artificial 
 than Catullus. And certainly Horace's lyric 
 verse presents a number of problems to the 
 metrician. Catullus thought that what Sappho 
 had done he might do, very much as Ennius 
 thought that what was effective in a Homeric 
 hexameter would be effective and artistic in 
 Latin too. But Horace's Sapphic verse differs 
 from Sappho's, and his Alcaic verse from Alcaeus'. 
 He has introduced new restrictions : restrictions 
 which have no known Greek precedent, and which 
 cannot be set down to the credit of any previous 
 Roman poet either — for we have Catullus' Sap- 
 phics and Asclepiadeans, and there is no reason 
 to doubt Horace's statement that no Roman 
 poet before him had attempted to write Alcaics 
 at all.^ What were Horace's changes, and how 
 
 ' ludicrum sibi roscido 
 nutriunt umore.' 
 Seneca sometimes admits a spondee as the third foot of a Sapphic line. 
 Compare also Oedipus 882 f. where there is a similar variation : 
 ' quidquid excessit modum 
 pendet instabili loco.' 
 Christ {Metrik^ p. 523) says that the spondee in such cases was 
 not a ' licentia concessa' but a 'vitium numeri.' It was one of 
 the questionable experiments of the Romans. 
 
 ' Epp. I, xix, 32.
 
 THE METRICAL FORM OF POETRY 253 
 
 far can they be accounted for ? Briefly enumer- 
 ated, they are as follows : 
 
 {a) In Sapphic verse, he made the fourth 
 syllable always long : and (though he abandoned 
 his own rule at times) he made a certain 
 ' caesura ' in the dactyl normal — thus making the 
 verse a more complex whole, made up of two 
 parts on the principle of the dactylic hexameter. 
 
 ib) In the first three lines of the Alcaic 
 stanza he made the anacrusis usually long and 
 the fifth syllable invariably long, thus, as in 
 Sapphics, imparting a new weight and dignity, 
 a Roman ' gravitas,' to the verse : and again, 
 as in Sapphic verse, he gave the first two 
 lines a more complex structure by introducing 
 what is perhaps best described as ' diaeresis,' a 
 break analogous to that which occurs in the 
 elegiac ' pentameter ' : ' odi profanum | vulgus et 
 arceo.' 
 
 ic) In Asclepiadean, Glyconic, and Pherecra- 
 tean verse he makes the so-called ' basis ' 
 invariably a spondee. This change, again, lent 
 Roman ' gravitas ' and strictness of rule to the 
 verse: but Horace often uses it for sportive 
 themes, and the change may be due to accept- 
 ance of a metrical theory — the Varronian one,
 
 254 LECTURES ON CLASSICAL SUBJECTS 
 
 already mentioned, of the derivation of these 
 metres from the hexameter. 
 
 id) In Asclepiadean verse, Horace always 
 makes the end of a word coincide with the end 
 of a ' choriambus ' : nullarn, Vare, sacra | vite 
 prius I severis arborem. 
 
 The last of these changes raises a question 
 which I have touched upon before, that of the 
 ' antispast ' and the ' cyclic dactyl ' (pp. 234-6). 
 How did Horace analyse the Asclepiadean metre? 
 What reason would he give in words, if we 
 could ask him why he modified it as he did ? 
 To that question there is no certain answer. 
 But I think we must be prepared to contem- 
 plate the possibility that a poet sometimes 
 modifies a metre from some vague instinct for 
 euphony, some feeling that a certain form of 
 a verse is more effective in given conditions : 
 and therefore that a theory of the change he 
 made may have substantial truth in it, although 
 he himself perhaps would not have given the 
 same explanation. It is in this sense, and from 
 this point of view, that the ' cyclic dactyl ' 
 seems to have some justification. On this theory, 
 the choriambus is really two feet, a dactyl and 
 a syncopated or catalectic trochee, — ^ — 1 or
 
 THE METRICAL FORM OF POETRY 255 
 
 — ^^— A. The verse was originally composed 
 to be sung to music, and a singer's voice can 
 prolong a syllable : 
 
 fxrjSev akXo </)i;Tet'— cr^ys wporepov SevSptoi' a/x7reAw. 
 
 But a long syllable of more than two times, a 
 long that is Tpi(T}]jui.o9 or Terpaa-tjiuo^, is quite un- 
 natural in mere speech or recitation : and when 
 a form of verse ceased to be sung, and was often 
 merely read, the poet made the long syllable 
 always the last syllable of a word, so that the 
 rhythm should come right by catalexis : for there 
 is always a slight pause of some sort at the end 
 of a word. This happened in the case of the 
 elegiac pentameter. Now Horace really wrote for 
 readers, though of course the lyric poet always 
 assumes that he is ' singing ' : and he probably 
 felt that the protracted syllable would be strange 
 and troublesome in mere reading. 
 
 I infer from this that the scansion which 
 assumes the ' cyclic dactyl ' is a better and more 
 reasonable scansion, though it is not certainly 
 that which Horace knew. For if there was no 
 difficulty about an ' antispast,' if an iambus could 
 be followed by a trochee without the slightest 
 embarrassment for the reader, —— l —^, what basis
 
 256 LECTURES ON CLASSICAL SUBJECTS 
 
 is left for an explanation of the change which 
 Horace made in Asclepiadean verse ? I do not 
 believe that a reader could pass from iambus to 
 trochee without an effort and a pause : the actual 
 result was a slight lengthening of the long syllable 
 of the iambus or a slight pause after it : and this 
 effect is most accurately construed by using 
 the notation of modern music. The alternative 
 scansion, the ' choriambic ' or iambo-trochaic, 
 does not explain the facts, but merely describes 
 them. What account can it give of Horace's 
 pause ? That he wished to make each ' choriam- 
 bus ' (— ^^— ) obvious and perceptible? But if 
 so, why is the pause observed only in the case of 
 the first choriambus of the shorter verse, and only 
 in the first two of the longer ? Why does the 
 former often end with words like ' edite regibus,' 
 the latter with ' severis arborem ' ? On the other 
 theory, the matter is quite simple : for here 
 there is no syncope or catalexis, a dactyl is 
 followed by a trochee, — ^^ I — — I — ^• 
 
 Whatever be the explanation of this particular 
 change, it is at least clear that Horace did modify 
 considerably the metres which he adopted. He 
 introduced new principles and restrictions. And 
 now we come to the very curious fact that he
 
 THE METRICAL FORM OF POETRY 257 
 
 also broke the laws he had made. He nowhere 
 admits a trochee as the second foot in a Sapphic 
 line or in the third line of an Alcaic stanza, and 
 he nowhere allows the fifth syllable in the first 
 two lines of that stanza to be short ; but all his 
 other limitations he somewhere — though it may- 
 be only once or twice — disregards. The rule of 
 the spondaic ' basis ' he violates only once, in I. 
 
 XV, 36 : 
 
 'ignis Iliacas domos.' 
 
 Next in rarity or infrequency comes the neglect 
 of the ' diaeresis ' in Alcaics : 
 
 ' spectandus in cer|tamine Martio.' 
 
 Compared with these cases, deviation from the 
 normal Sapphic ' caesura ' is comparatively fre- 
 quent. When it occurs, it is not a wide deviation 
 and consists only in substituting the ' trochaic ' 
 or Homeric division of the dactyl, , ^ '. 
 
 ' Phoebe silvarumque | potens Diana.' 
 
 Horace does not allow himself a line like 
 
 Catullus' 
 
 'ille mi par | esse | deo videtur.' 
 
 The trochaic caesura is specially frequent in the 
 caj'i?ien saeculare : that is, when, like Sappho, 
 
 R
 
 2 58 LECTURES ON CLASSICAL SUBJECTS 
 
 he was composing what was undoubtedly and 
 obviously meant to be sung — for, like the pause 
 in Asclepiadean verse, the Sapphic ' caesura ' and 
 the Alcaic diaeresis are not, I think, entirely 
 unconnected with the transition from singing to 
 reading : a verse that suited song might be too 
 slight and thin and rapid when it was merely 
 read. The trochaic caesura is also fairly fre- 
 quent in the odes of the Fourth Book, composed 
 about the same period of Horace's life as the 
 carmen saeculare, and published only three or four 
 years later. The sixth may have been written, 
 as Kiessling suggests, when Horace was com- 
 missioned by Augustus to compose an ode for 
 the Ludi saeculares : and it is probably not a 
 mere accident or coincidence that where Horace 
 pictures himself as a chorodidascalos — as teaching 
 an actual choir to sing his strains — he departs 
 from his prevailing caesura and has the trochaic 
 
 one : ' Lesbium servate pedem meique 
 
 pollicis ictum.' 
 
 What of the pause in Asclepiadean verse ? 
 How does Horace treat that? He observes it 
 with great regularity. There is one apparent 
 exception : 
 
 'dum flagrantia detorquet ad oscula,' (ll. xii. 25)
 
 THE METRICAL FORM OF POETRY 259 
 
 and one where the authenticity of the text has 
 been questioned : 
 
 'non incendia Carthaginis impiae.' (iv. viii. 17) 
 
 As to the former, there is some reason to think 
 that in a compound h'ke ' detorquet ' the preposi- 
 tion was felt to be sHghtly detached from the 
 other part of the word : and this may lead us 
 back to consider again the violations of the 
 ' diaeresis ' in Alcaics. They are five in num- 
 ber, and only two of them are real, the instance 
 quoted above (vi. xiv. 17) and i. xxxvii. 14: 
 
 ' mentemque lympha | tarn Mareotico.' 
 
 The others are like ' detorquet ' : 
 
 ' hostile aratrum ex | ercitus insolens. 
 antehac nefas de | promere Caecubum. 
 utrumque nostrum in | credibili modo.' ^ 
 
 The second exception to the Asclepiadean pause 
 is one which Horace may very well have ad- 
 mitted, if we reflect upon his tivo violations of 
 
 ^ See Dr. Gow's Introduction to the Odes, p. xxviii, where 
 these and similar peculiarities are collected. Dr. Gow does not 
 discuss the reasons for Horace's changes, hut he yives the facts 
 in a convenient form. Beginners should perhaps be warned that 
 when Dr. Gow says that the Alcaic diaeresis ' was not used by 
 the Greeks ' or the Horatian caesura in Sapi:)hics ' not used by 
 Sappho,' it is not meant that those things never occur in the Greek 
 poets, but only that they are optional with them, not regular.
 
 26o LECTURES ON CLASSICAL SUBJECTS 
 
 the diaeresis in Alcaics : and it would have 
 special precedent and justification in so far as 
 a proper name, Carthaginis, is involved — metrical 
 rules were always regarded as capable of some 
 slight relaxation when proper names had to be 
 introduced by the poet. It would seem, there- 
 fore, that there is no metrical objection to the 
 line : if its authenticity is impugned, it must be 
 on other grounds, such as the fact that the ode 
 is exceptional as it stands in having a number 
 of lines which is not divisible by four, and the 
 apparent association of the younger Scipio with 
 Ennius. 
 
 Horace binds fetters upon himself and occa- 
 sionally shakes them off, by way of showing 
 that they are self-imposed. We may safely 
 assume his position to be this : ' I regard these 
 changes as improvements, at all events for lyric 
 composition in Latin : but, of course, they are 
 only preferences of mine : I am not bound by 
 them, and I choose to make that clear by occa- 
 sionally departing from them.' And it may be 
 added that he does not admit any of the 
 deviations in the first nine odes of the First 
 Book — a group of odes (answering in number, 
 as L, Miiller pointed out, to the number of the
 
 THE METRICAL FORM OF POETRY 261 
 
 Muses) which he perhaps specially selected and 
 placed there as examples of his lyric art/ 
 
 The result of the whole inquiry, as far as the 
 text of Roman poets is concerned, seems to be 
 this : an editor should be slow to assume that 
 what is metrically exceptional affords a reason 
 for doubting the text or resorting to conjectural 
 emendation. The poet may have gone astray, 
 through imperfect appreciation of the structure 
 of a Greek metre : or he may have made what 
 he knew to be a mere experiment : or he may 
 have reverted to what he knew to be a quite 
 legitimate form of the metre he was using. In 
 the Attis of Catullus, for example, I think it 
 would be very unsafe to say that passages like 
 ' et earum omnia adirem ' and ' stadio et gym- 
 
 nasiis ' (^^ -^^ and —^ ^. ) are 
 
 metrically unsound and must be emended ; is it 
 not quite likely that the variation is deliberate 
 and even instructive ? The poet wishes us to 
 see that he knows quite well what metre he is 
 using, and considers himself at liberty to write 
 pure Ionic verse in place of the prevailing 
 
 1 The nine odes are in nine dift'erent metres. A short anacrusis 
 in Alcaics does occur in them (ix. i, ' vTdes ut alta'), but it may be 
 doubted whether Horace ever laid upon himself any rule, or con- 
 templated any regular practice, in regard to that syllable.
 
 263 LECTURES ON CLASSICAL SUBJECTS , 
 
 avaKXcojueuoi. He is perhaps doing exactly what 
 Horace does when he deviates from his own rule 
 or practice in Sapphic and Alcaic verse. It is 
 often no easy matter to say what is metrically 
 legitimate and what is not. 
 
 ' non quivis videt immodulata poemata iudex ' — 
 
 When Horace wrote that line, he meant to write 
 a line which would perplex the uncritical 'iudex,' 
 for it has the appearance of lacking a proper 
 ' caesura,' and it is understood only when we 
 recall the slight detachment of the negative pre- 
 fix which has been already mentioned ('utrumque 
 nostrum in | credibili modo'):^ and unless we 
 credit the Roman poets, and Horace in par- 
 ticular, with a large measure of purpose and 
 subtlety in their metrical effects, we shall 
 probably misunderstand them and 'emend' them 
 where there is no need for emendation. 
 
 ^ The same assumption is required to explain a hexameter of 
 LuciHus : 
 
 ' Scipiadae magno in-probus obiciebat Asellus,' 
 and another in Lucretius : 
 
 'quid enim in-mortahbus atque beatis.'
 
 VIII. 
 
 LITERARY CRITICISM AT ROME.i 
 
 The term ' Literary Criticism ' does not suggest 
 to us any very definite and certain form of 
 knowledge : as we meet with the thing in 
 everyday life, it consists often of irresponsible 
 and anonymous remarks, with which one fre- 
 quently disagrees, published in some weekly or 
 monthly journal. But even in modern times 
 there are books containing sound and solid 
 literary criticism, not perhaps reduced to system, 
 but sufficiently certain and precise to be con- 
 sidered a ' science.' In ancient times such a 
 science existed rather more obviously and com- 
 pletely, because it was fostered and developed 
 in the schools of Rhetoric. Clearly such a 
 
 'A lecture given in October, 1S97, intended as introductory to 
 the study of Quintilian's Tenth Book. The two following lectures 
 were given in October, 1898, and October, 1896, respectively.
 
 264 LECTURES ON CLASSICAL SUBJECTS 
 
 science ought to be possible : a science which 
 would deal with literary products as Botany 
 deals with plant-forms or Geology with rock- 
 forms : which would not waste its time in the 
 often barren inquiry whether A or B, Sophocles 
 or Aeschylus, is the greater poet, but would 
 try rather to discriminate and describe the 
 peculiar qualities of each : which would call our 
 attention to the ideas which were ' in the air ' 
 at a particular period, and which inspired a 
 particular generation of writers : would trace the 
 influence of earlier authors upon a later one, 
 would show how he dealt with his materials, 
 and would trace the influence which he in turn 
 exercised upon his successors. It was in the 
 first of these inquiries that ancient criticism 
 was especially strong. It discriminated qualities 
 of style with considerable accuracy and certainty : 
 it had names for these qualities, adjectives which 
 are often subtle and difficult to render in 
 English, but which are rarely vague or nebulous. 
 Perhaps ancient literature presented less difficult 
 problems to the critic than modern literature 
 does : the mechanism of style was simpler, the 
 effects were more easily analysed, there was 
 less diversity of aim and less eccentricity in the
 
 LITERARY CRITICISM AT ROME 265 
 
 authors. Writing was more consistently thought 
 of as an art. At Rome, literary criticism played 
 an important part in the development of litera- 
 ture. Many of the best writings of the 
 Greeks were produced in an age when literary 
 criticism hardly existed. There were no 
 grammarians in the days of Aeschylus and 
 Pindar, though the latter perhaps lived to 
 see the composition of the first Textbook of 
 Rhetoric in Sicily. But with the Romans 
 the case was very different. When they 
 began to write, the Greeks had already ad- 
 vanced far in the science and art of literary 
 criticism, and the first Latin poet — if poet he 
 can be called — was a Greek schoolmaster of 
 Tarentum. 
 
 Literary criticism of a kind existed from very 
 early times — casual and isolated criticism which 
 asked rather what an author said than Jiozv 
 he said it. Hesiod tending his flocks on Helicon 
 saw with wondering eyes the forms of the nine 
 Muses float before him : they gave him a wand 
 of laurel, and said, ' Many false tales can we 
 tell that bear the likeness of truth, and many 
 true tales, if we choose to tell them.' They told 
 the false tales to Homer, perhaps we are to
 
 266 LECTURES ON CLASSICAL SUBJECTS 
 
 understand, ' the true tales to me.' Early 
 attempts to consider the nature of poetry or 
 to estimate poets resulted often in the conclusion 
 that the poet 'told lies.' It took a long time 
 and a great deal of discussion to mitigate this 
 prejudice in the Greek mind. Aristotle is 
 perhaps the only critic who rises clearly above 
 the point of view from which such objections are 
 raised. It would be easy to multiply instances 
 of incidental criticism, remarks made upon 
 particular authors before there was any thought 
 of an art of Poetry or Prose, a definite re^i^j; 
 with rules of its own. Semonides quotes with 
 approval, as the ' finest thing said by the man 
 of Chios,' the despondent line in which we 
 are told that ' the generations of men fade and 
 pass away like the leaves of the forest.' The 
 active and energetic Solon rebukes the pleasure- 
 loving Ionian, Mimnermus, for wishing to die 
 at the age of sixty. It is in the fifth century 
 that the notion of distinct literary art begins 
 to appear. Corinna impresses upon Pindar 
 the necessity of self-restraint and artistic parsi- 
 mony, ' You are to sow with the hand and not 
 with the sack.' Sophocles is conspicuous among 
 Greek poets for his critical insight : he seems
 
 LITERARY CRITICISM AT ROME 267 
 
 to have been — what is very rare — a good critic 
 of his own work, distinguishing acutely three 
 phases of style through which he had passed. 
 He also contrasted himself with his great prede- 
 cessor and his great successor in often-quoted 
 sayings : of Aeschylus, that he did the right 
 thing without knowing it or being able to 
 explain it : of Euripides, that he represented men 
 ' as they are,' whereas he himself represented them 
 ' as they should be ' (which seems to me rather 
 the more likely interpretation of the words as 
 Aristotle quotes them). The professional critic, 
 so far as he existed, was not at first very happy 
 in his efforts. He did not appreciate Homer 
 so well as the populace or so well as men of 
 action. It is told of Alcibiades that he once 
 entered a school and demanded a copy of Homer: 
 the master had none to produce, and Alcibiades 
 promptly boxed his ears for him. So it was in 
 later ages. Alexander, Aemilius Paullus, and 
 Scipio were strong admirers of Homer, as were 
 Cond^^ and Turenne in a much later age, the 
 seventeenth century. The critics often sought 
 in Homer what it is not the poet's business to 
 give : exact information on geography, tactics, 
 history, or theology. When the information
 
 268 LECTURES ON CLASSICAL SUBJECTS 
 
 proved to be inaccurate, they joined in the cry 
 that Homer ' told lies.' 
 
 Criticism in early Greece was not, however, 
 always concerned with particular authors or 
 particular sayings. Some general issues, some 
 questions of principle did come to the front. 
 One of them we have already touched upon, 
 the inquiry as to the kind of truth to be 
 expected from the poet. There was what Plato 
 calls ' a feud of long standing,' iraKaia ri? 
 Sia(popa, on this subject between Poetry and 
 Philosophy. Plato himself took part in the 
 fray, but Aristotle did not. Secondly, there 
 was an interesting controversy about music and 
 the relation of music to words : the lyre was 
 Hellenic, the flute Asiatic and sensuous ; this 
 was a ver_y ancient controversy, one of the 
 earliest incidents of which was the flaying of 
 Marsyas by Apollo ! To make the words 
 subordinate to the music came under the same 
 condemnation. The Greek liked what was 
 clear, articulate, and definite, what had one 
 meaning, and one meaning only. Thirdly, 
 there was an inquiry which Lessing revived, 
 and which has bulked pretty largely in modern 
 discussions, whether Painting and Poetry were
 
 LITERARY CRITICISM AT ROME 269 
 
 arts sufficiently similar to allow of our argu- 
 ing from the one to the other. Sophocles 
 held Lessing's view on this point, that the 
 rules of the two are essentially different : a 
 painter must not take too literally Homer's 
 ' rosy-fingered ' — he would paint the hand of a 
 dyer, Tropcbvpofliiacpov ye1pa<i aW ov yuvaiKog KaXij?. 
 The fourth century was chiefly remarkable 
 in literature for the great development of Prose 
 which it witnessed, and for the formulation of 
 rules for oratory and other forms of prose by 
 distinguished trainers and rhetoricians like Thra- 
 symachus and Isocrates. Between this period 
 and the beginning of Roman literature lies the 
 Alexandrian age, and it was the work of the 
 Alexandrian and Pergamene scholars that affected 
 the Romans most nearly and most powerfull}-. 
 ' Scholars ' is the word perhaps which we should 
 use in speaking of these critics. They were 
 ypajut-iuLaTiKOL, men of letters, litterati : not ' gram- 
 marians ' in a narrow or elementary sense — 
 the teacher of the elements of grammar is 
 ypa/u/maTicTTi'i? or littera^or. They were ' scholars ' 
 and they were also writers, poets many of them, 
 or at all events elegant composers of verse. 
 It was an age of scholastic discussion, and in
 
 270 LECTURES ON CLASSICAL SUBJECTS 
 
 fact often of very acrimonious discussion, Apol- 
 lonius is known as 'the Rhodian ' because he 
 lived for many years at Rhodes when CalH- 
 machus had made things unpleasant for him 
 at Alexandria. There are echoes of this quarrel 
 in Theocritus, where we hear of ' birds that 
 cackle in fruitless rivalry against the notes of 
 the bard of Chios,' the swan-song of Homer. 
 Theocritus was a friend of Callimachus, and 
 Apollonius was one of these birds. I refer to 
 this because we have here the literary precedent 
 for some things in the Eclogues of Virgil. 
 
 Here, again, we may ask, as we asked in 
 regard to the earlier age, what general principles 
 were involved, what wider issues were debated ? 
 There were at least two questions which call 
 for notice, one literary and one grammatical. 
 
 In the sphere of literature, Callimachus held 
 that a large epic poem was no longer possible, 
 or at all events that the large and ambitious 
 efforts made by some of his contemporaries 
 were mistaken. There was a good deal of 
 truth in this contention, at least for Alexandria, 
 where there was no national life or patriotic 
 interest to inspire a great epic. The wisest 
 thing for the learned poet to do was to dis-
 
 LITERARY CRITICISM AT ROME 271 
 
 play his delicate and skilful workmanship on 
 a small scale, in an Idyll or an Elegy. These 
 were the two forms of poetry cultivated with 
 most success. They indicate a considerable 
 change both in the theme and the spirit of 
 poetry. In the Idyll, it is no longer the life 
 of kings and great warriors that is portrayed, 
 as in Homer and Tragedy, but scenes from 
 everyday life, the joys and sorrows of humble 
 people — fishermen or shepherds or ' women at 
 the Festival of Adonis ' (Theocr. xv.). In the 
 Elegy, the poet gave expression to his personal 
 feelings and thoughts : his poetry was the very 
 opposite of Homer's, where the poet himself 
 never appears before us at all. The Alex- 
 andrian theory and practice of poetry exercised 
 a profound influence upon the poets of Rome : 
 not upon the early poets, for Ennius went 
 back to Homer or Euripides for his inspiration, 
 but upon the generation to which Catullus 
 belonged, and upon the Augustan age. Catul- 
 lus' friends decried Ennius just as Callimachus 
 had decried the ambitious epic in the manner 
 of Homer. No doubt many Roman epics 
 deserved this condemnation, such as the ' Volusi 
 annales ' which, Catullus predicts, will perish
 
 272 LECTURES ON CLASSICAL SUBJECTS 
 
 at Padua where they were composed, and serve 
 only as loose wrappers for the humble mackerel. 
 
 ' Paduam morientur ad ipsam 
 et laxas scombris saepe dabunt tunicas ' ; 
 
 but it was not true of Rome, as it had been 
 of Alexandria, that a great epic was now im- 
 possible. The Romans were a great nation, 
 and there was a national idea to inspire such 
 a poem. In the next generation Virgil accom- 
 plished the task, in that happy interval secured 
 for the Roman world by Augustus, when the 
 civic strife and corruption of the Republic had 
 ceased, and the depressing and degrading effect 
 of despotism was not yet felt. 
 
 The grammatical question which the Romans 
 inherited from the scholars of Alexandria and 
 Pergamos was one which has its counterpart 
 in the history of modern scholarship. The 
 Alexandrians upheld the principle of auaXoyla, 
 regularity or uniformity in language : the Per- 
 gamenes believed rather in apoo/j.aXia, irregu- 
 larity or unevenness ' : grammar and idiom in 
 their view could not be reduced to hard and 
 fast general rules. The Pergamenes were 
 Stoics in Philosophy, and they held the Stoic 
 view that language came to exist originally
 
 LITERARY CRITICISM AT ROME 273 
 
 by nature and not by arbitrary convention or 
 agreement, (bvarei, not a-wQi'iKij. But they seem 
 to have regarded the use of language in its later 
 stages as to some extent arbitrary. The Alex- 
 andrians, on the other hand, laid down strict 
 rules about the usage of words. ' ^a/? ' meant a 
 banquet, a feast partaken of by men : it could 
 not be applied to the feeding of animals. Homer, 
 therefore, probably did not say oiwuola-i re SaiTa 
 in the fifth line of the //md, but olwuoicri re iracri. 
 Here a good method is carried too far and 
 applied too rigidly. The rule about Satg has to 
 be supplemented by another rule or reservation 
 to the effect that a poet may use such a word 
 figuratively or metaphorically, as Aeschylus un- 
 doubtedly did when he wrote opvicri deiTrvou. 
 Again, to take a Latin instance from grammar 
 or accidence, we may arrive at the general rule 
 that the accusative in the third declension ends 
 in -em. But the upholder of avoofxaXla adduces 
 exceptions. The accusative of stmt's is not siteni, 
 but sitini. So the dispute goes on, and excep- 
 tions are gradually collected and arranged, until 
 all the phenomena of the language are classified — 
 a result in Latin which seems to be within view 
 
 when we come to Cicero's contemporary, Varro. 
 
 s
 
 274 LECTURES ON CLASSICAL SUBJECTS 
 
 In grammar, at all events, avakoyla is bound to 
 triumph in the end. The exceptions group 
 themselves into subordinate rules. In matters of 
 literary interpretation, and especially in the inter- 
 pretation of poets, its triumph is not so obvious. 
 The subordinate rules are often so subtle and 
 complex that it would be an almost endless 
 task to formulate them as a system. In this 
 sense, many English scholars are adherents of 
 avoD,aaXia, for instance Sir Richard Jebb, The 
 scholars of Germany and Holland have tended 
 rather to believe in avaXoyla : Cobet, for example, 
 is distinctly an analogist. 
 
 Pergamene influence was felt at Rome earlier 
 than that of Alexandria. In 165 B.C. Crates of 
 Mallos, the head of the Pergamene school, was 
 sent as an envoy to Rome. An accident con- 
 tributed to the diffusion of his teaching. The 
 streets of the city were not kept in perfect 
 repair : Crates fell into a ' cloaca ' and broke his 
 leg. During a long period of convalescence he 
 diverted himself with what does not perhaps 
 strike one as an obvious form of amusement — 
 giving lectures. His discourses, we are told, 
 were listened to with great attention and 
 enthusiasm by the youth of Rome. By the end
 
 { 
 
 LITERARY CRITICISM AT ROME 275 
 
 of the century — the second before Christ — great 
 progress had been made. The ' Scipionic circle,' 
 with Lucilius for its exponent, cultivated and 
 diffused an enlightened interest in literary matters. 
 In grammar, Pergamos had had the start of 
 Alexandria ; but Alexandrian ideas were begin- 
 ning to be known. Aelius Stilo, the teacher of 
 Cicero and Varro, was probably an analogist. 
 Stilo was specially interested in Plautus. He 
 declared that ' if the Muses were to speak Latin, 
 they would have chosen the speech of Plautus : 
 " Plautino sermone locuturas fuisse, si Latine 
 loqui vellent." He also examined critically the 
 plays which went under the name of Plautus, 
 and pronounced fifteen of them genuine. This 
 was the kind of work which the Alexandrians 
 had done for Greek poets. The scholars of 
 Alexandria and Pergamos had also occupied 
 themselves with another not unimportant task — 
 that of drawing up a ' canon ' or authoritative 
 list of the best writers in a particular branch of 
 literature. There was a canon of ten epic poets, 
 headed by Homer ; a canon of ten orators, 
 headed by Demosthenes. It was not perhaps a 
 very profitable inquiry whether a particular writer 
 should be placed third or fourth on such a list.
 
 276 LECTURES ON CLASSICAL SUBJECTS 
 
 But the ' canons ' were drawn up, on the whole, 
 with sound judgment, and their compilers, per- 
 formed for the world a service which they them- 
 selves could not foresee. They helped to bring 
 about the result that the really great writers 
 were widely read and used as school-books. 
 Copies of them were multiplied, copies of "ex- 
 cluded writers became fewer and fewer. Hence 
 the really great writers had a better chance of 
 surviving the period of destruction and confusion, 
 and what has come down to us in modern 
 times is a great deal of the best and not a great 
 deal of the worst products of ancient literature. 
 The Romans in the time of Scipio began to 
 imitate the Alexandrians and Pergamenes in 
 drawing up ' canons.' One such canon is extant, 
 composed by Volcacius Sedigitus, in iambic 
 verses. It puts in order the poets of the ' pal- 
 liata,' the form of comedy which Plautus and 
 Terence wrote, adapted from the New Comedy 
 of Athens. Caecilius comes first, Plautus is an 
 ' easy second,' 
 
 ' Plautus secundus facile exsuperat ceteros,' 
 next comes Naevius, and Terence stands fifth. 
 Ennius is allowed a place at the end : 
 
 'decimum addo, causa antiquitatis, Ennium.'
 
 LITERARY CRITICISM AT ROME 277 
 
 The precise principle on which this order was 
 arrived at has not been discovered. But the 
 place assigned to Ennius is probably right 
 enough. He did little in comedy, and what is 
 extant of his other works does not suggest that 
 he had any special aptitude for it. 
 
 Early in the next century — in the year 88 B.C. 
 —there was opened at Rome the first distinctively 
 Latin school of Rhetoric : a school where Rhetoric 
 was not taught in Greek or by Greeks, and where 
 it was taught apart from grammar as an inde- 
 pendent art or science. A little later, the influ- 
 ence of Alexandrian poetry began to be felt. In 
 72 the Mithradatic war brought to Rome a 
 Greek named Parthenius, whose native place 
 Nicaea had been taken, just as two centuries 
 earlier the war with Tarentum had resulted in 
 the coming of Andronicus, who translated the 
 Odyssey^ and laid the first foundations of a new 
 literature based on that of Greece. Parthenius 
 was a living poet of the Alexandrian school, 
 and he probably did much to form the taste and 
 direct the energies of the group of poets known 
 as ' cantores Euphorionis,' most of them young 
 men of rank, friends of Catullus from North 
 Italy, and bitter opponents of Caesar. It was
 
 278 LECTURES ON CLASSICAL SUBJECTS 
 
 perhaps their anti-Caesarian spirit that caused 
 them to be ignored or spoken of slightingly by 
 the Augustans — Horace, for example, has only 
 one not very respectful allusion to Catullus. 
 But they played a useful part in the development 
 of literature. Often lapsing into mere prettiness 
 and ingenuity of expression, often lost in deserts 
 of minute mythological learning, they inculcated 
 the lesson of artistic toil, the necessity for the 
 ' limae labor,' the worthlessness of rough and slip- 
 shod work ; and they brought almost to perfection 
 some of the less ambitious forms of poetry : the 
 Epigram and the short Lyric, the Idyll and the 
 Elegy, though the last did not reach in their 
 hands anything like the fluent and mechanical 
 precision of form which it has in Ovid. Lucre- 
 tius held aloof from them, and persisted in 
 admiring Ennius. 
 
 The question of ' Analogia ' continues to be 
 debated. Julius Caesar composed a treatise De 
 Analogia in two books. According to Fronto, 
 it was composed almost on the field of battle, 
 ' inter tela volantia,' amid hurtling javelins, ' inter 
 classica et tubas,' amid the blasts of the war 
 trumpet. It was really written on a journey, 
 when Caesar was crossing the Alps to rejoin 
 
 i
 
 LITERARY CRITICISM AT ROME 279 
 
 his army in the winter 53-52 B.C. The work 
 was addressed to Cicero, for whom Caesar ex- 
 pressed the highest admiration. He was writing 
 ' de ratione Latine loquendi ' on the rules of pure 
 and correct Latin idiom ; and while he recog- 
 nised Cicero's great services to Latin letters, 
 we may conjecture that some of Cicero's inno- 
 vations in vocabulary would not altogether be 
 approved by him. For he was a strict purist 
 and a firm believer in ' Analogy.' ' Habe semper 
 in memoria atque in pectore, ut tamquam scop- 
 ulum sic fugias inauditum atque insolens verbum'; 
 an unprecedented and unfamiliar word you are 
 to avoid as you would avoid a reef or rock. 
 ' Latine loqui ' was a thing to which the Romans 
 attached great importance. Lucretius as well as 
 Cicero sometimes innovated more boldly than 
 the strict canons of Caesar would allow. In 
 the next generation, it is clear that the poets 
 had to contend against similar criticism. Horace 
 in the Ars Poetica pleads ardently for a reason- 
 able measure of liberty. Why should not Virgil 
 and Varius be allowed to do what Caecilius 
 and Plautus did ? In a great many cases re- 
 sistance to innovation meant resistance to 
 Graecisms ; there was a national and patriotic
 
 28o LECTURES ON CLASSICAL SUBJECTS 
 
 motive as well as a literary one. Many of 
 Horace's new turns of speech are distinctly 
 Greek : ' desine querelarum,' ' regnavit popu- 
 lorum/ ' invideor.' Csesar, we learn from one 
 of the few notices extant of his book, insisted 
 upon declining Calypso, Calypsonem, on the 
 analogy of Juno, Junonem. Ennius had de- 
 clined Dido, Didonis ; Hector, Hectoris. The 
 Augustan poets used the smoother and less 
 cumbrous Greek forms for Greek proper names, 
 Hectora rather than Hect5rem. Virgil offended 
 against a Caesarian canon by using ' hordea ' 
 (barley) in the plural. One of his ' obtrecta- 
 tores ' assailed him for it : 'we shall hear of 
 tritica next ' — 
 
 ' Hordea qui dixit superest ut tritica dicat.' 
 
 These are minute points, some of them almost 
 trivial. But much literary discussion at Rome 
 turned upon such things, and one would not 
 give a true impression of Roman literary life 
 without letting them bulk pretty largely in the 
 account. The combination of grammatical with 
 literary study is characteristic of Alexandria 
 and Rome. The cultivation of Rhetoric on the 
 other hand, another feature of Roman letters,
 
 LITERARY CRITICISM AT ROME 281 
 
 came from Pergamos and Rhodes, not from 
 Alexandria. Alexandria studied Poetry and 
 Science, Pergamos Rhetoric and Philosophy. 
 
 In the age of which we are now speaking, 
 that of Augustus, some changes took place 
 which tended to stimulate literary criticism and 
 interest in literature generally. The first public 
 library was founded by Asinius Pollio, and 
 Augustus followed his example by founding the 
 great Palatine Library in 28 B.C. Another new 
 thing introduced by Pollio was the practice of 
 recitations : the author read his work aloud, 
 before publishing it, to a group of friends, and 
 endeavoured to profit by their criticisms and 
 suggestions. This was a very frequent practice 
 under the Empire. It encouraged clever writ- 
 ing and a declamatory manner, and it sharpened 
 the faculties of the hearer or critic. Pollio 
 himself was a severe and exacting judge : he 
 found ' Patavinitas ' in Livy, he was dissatisfied 
 with Cicero's style, and he doubted Caesar's 
 veracity, he objected to Catullus' grammar, and 
 had faults to find with Sallust ! There was 
 much literary activity under the early Emperors, 
 though never again the vigour and productive- 
 ness of the Augustan era. Critical and gram-
 
 282 LECTURES ON CLASSICAL SUBJECTS 
 
 matical study went on apace ; and while there 
 was no doubt much arbitrary judgment, pedantry, 
 and eccentric taste, there was also a large 
 mass of sound and exact knowledge, revealed 
 to us in many of its branches by the work of 
 Ouintilian. 
 
 But we have dwelt long enough upon the 
 history of criticism at Rome. It remains to ask, 
 What were the general characteristics of Roman 
 literary criticism ? Has it any broad and re- 
 current qualities or defects ? It certainly had 
 its limitations, especially in regard to poetry. 
 It was not so instructive as the thought of the 
 Greeks on these subjects. It did not consider 
 in the same way the ultimate nature and aim 
 of poetry. Early writers who were mere trans- 
 lators claimed the name ' poeta,' and were allowed 
 to bear it. Society at first did not rate the 
 poet very highly or take him very seriously. 
 He was spoken of as a ' scriba ' or ' scriptor,' 
 if not by the more opprobrious term ' grassator ' 
 (vagabond or idler). In the Augustan age this 
 was not so : the old words ' carmen ' and ' vates ' 
 came into vogue : ' vates ' meant an inspired 
 singer, not a mere maker of verses or an idle 
 dreamer. Even in Plautus there is some notion
 
 LITERARY CRITICISM AT ROME 283 
 
 of the imaginative and inventive power of the 
 
 poet : 
 
 ' quasi poeta, tabulas cum cepit sibi, 
 quaerit quod nusquamst gentium, reperit tamen, 
 facit illud veri simile quod mendacium est'^ — 
 
 ' like a poet, who takes his writing tablets and 
 searches for what nowhere exists, yet finds it 
 all the same, who l-ends the likeness of truth 
 to what is a lie.' The ' mendacium ' recalls an 
 old conception of the poet, which we have seen 
 to be not unfamiliar with the Greeks. The 
 Romans tended to expect the poet to tell 
 them what was ' true,' in the spirit of Hesiod. 
 They cultivated didactic and historical poetry, 
 and it obscured their perception of what poetry 
 really is. The judgments pronounced upon 
 poets by the Romans are rarely free from some 
 narrowness or prejudice. There was a good 
 deal of mutual admiration in some poetic circles 
 at Rome, certainly among the ' cantores,' who 
 were very ready to predict immortality for one 
 another's works : 
 
 ' Saecula permaneat nostri Dictynna Catonis." 
 
 A little later, Horace seems in one passage to 
 have a quiet laugh at Propertius for allowing 
 
 ^ Pseudolus, 401-3.
 
 284 LECTURES ON CLASSICAL SUBJECTS 
 
 himself to be drawn into such exchange of 
 compliments and for delighting to be called 
 the Callimachus of Rome. In the Roman esti- 
 mate of Greek poets, again, there was some 
 lack of perspective. The Alexandrians were too 
 near to be seen in their true proportions. We 
 agree with Ovid when he says that Homer 
 will live while Ida and Tenedos remain : but 
 it is not so easy to follow him when he goes 
 on to pay a still more startling compliment to 
 the astronomical versifier Aratus : 
 
 ' Cum sole et luna semper Aratus erit.' 
 
 The Roman critic did not possess the clearness 
 of vision and balanced judgment of the best 
 Greek thinkers. He drifted from one extreme 
 to another. If he was enamoured of literary 
 form and finish he saw no merit in Ennius at 
 all. If he belonged to the reaction, he refused 
 to see in Ennius any faults. Horace frequently 
 sketches for us the current criticism of his day : 
 if we may trust him, it was somewhat obtuse 
 and one-sided, warped by national prejudice, 
 and often tending to admire old poets for what 
 was least admirable in them. But Horace him- 
 self is less than just to some of the old
 
 LITERARY CRITICISM AT ROME 285 
 
 writers ; an enthusiast for careful and artistic 
 work, he is unduly repelled by what is rough 
 and loose in their style. It is not in criti- 
 cism of poets, or criticism by poets, that we 
 are to look for the best that the Romans could 
 do in the appreciation and description of litera- 
 ture ; it is rather in prose discourses upon 
 prose ; and if we may single out one work, the 
 Brutus of Cicero may be taken as representing 
 Roman criticism at its best. Here Cicero 
 describes for us with convincing lucidity and 
 wealth of language the orators whom he has 
 known. The treatise is one which would well 
 deserve to be much read were it not for the 
 fact that many of the speakers whom he 
 delineates are to us mere names. Their speeches 
 have not been preserved, and some of them 
 were never committed to writing. It is when 
 Cicero describes his great rival Hortensius, or 
 gives us an account of his own early training, 
 that the work gains in real interest for us ; and 
 these portions of it — towards the end — should 
 certainly be read by all students of Latin prose 
 style. Apart from the critical writings of Cicero 
 and the admirable 'Dialogue' of Tacitus, the 
 tenth book of Quintilian is the piece of critical
 
 286 LECTURES ON CLASSICAL SUBJECTS 
 
 writing which has most interest for us. In 
 the first chapter, Quintilian reviews the Hterature 
 of Greece and Rome, and briefly characterises 
 most of the more important authors. His 
 judgments are sometimes denounced as Hmited, 
 prosaic, and commonplace. But there is a good 
 deal to be said on the other side. His point of 
 view is of necessity practical : he is not giving 
 us literary criticism for its own sake, but answer- 
 ing the question, What authors make the best 
 reading for the future orator ? That he should 
 be somewhat brief and prosaic is only natural. 
 And he is not so very prosaic. There is a 
 good deal of subtlety and imaginative insight 
 in the vocabulary of the Roman critic. Those 
 who think Ouintilian's criticisms dull and obvious 
 might be invited to translate such things as 
 the often-quoted epithets for Thucydides and 
 Herodotus : ' densus et brevis et semper instans 
 sibi Thucydides ' ; ' dulcis et candidus et fusus 
 Herodotus.' ' Laetus ' and ' pressus ' are favourite 
 terms for opposite qualities of style. Both are 
 distinctly picturesque and imaginative. ' Laetus ' 
 is the poetic and rustic adjective for luxuriant 
 and abundant crops, as in Virgil's ' quid faciat 
 laetas segestes,' ' pressus ' is a metaphor from
 
 LITERARY CRITICISM AT ROME 2^,7 
 
 the pruning of the vine, ' premere falce.' In 
 all practical matters of literary or oratorical 
 training, Quintilian shows the most conspicuous 
 good sense and soundness of judgment. Purely- 
 literary criticism, at all events of poets, was not 
 his business. When he dismisses Lucretius with 
 the one word ' difficilis,' we recall to his detri- 
 ment the happier and more appreciative phrase 
 of his contemporary Statins, ' docti furor arduus 
 Lucreti.' Quintilian was no doubt too ready 
 to attach to an author a current or conventional 
 'label': but when it is specially commonplace 
 and formal, it is usually obvious that he is 
 giving what is traditional because it suffices for 
 his purpose, and not attempting to express a 
 view of his own.
 
 IX. 
 
 A SKETCH OF THE REVIVAL AND 
 PROGRESS OF CLASSICAL STUDIES 
 IN EUROPE. 
 
 It is now some five centuries since the study 
 of the classics was revived, and since a fresh 
 impulse was given to intellectual life in Western 
 Europe by that revival. Classical Learning, 
 Scholarship, or Philology — -we may use any one 
 of these phrases vaguely for the present — has 
 passed through many phases, it has been ap- 
 proached in various ways, and regarded from 
 various points of view. At one time one nation 
 took the lead in it, at another, another. It is 
 instructive to inquire what each age attempted : 
 it helps to form our own idea of what Scholar- 
 ship or Education should be. The first period 
 may be called the Italian. It was in Italy 
 that the fetters of the Middle Ages were first
 
 PROGRESS OF CLASSICAL STUDIES 289 
 
 broken : it was there that the darkness was 
 first dispelled by new rays of light. Macaulay 
 (in his essay on Machiavelli) remarks that in 
 Italy the darkness had been less opaque than 
 elsewhere. ' The night which descended upon 
 her was the night of an Arctic summer,' 
 
 It was, roughly, about the middle of the 
 fourteenth century — 1350 — that the new move- 
 ment began. For seven centuries, or more, 
 before that date, there had been little or no 
 intellectual progress in Europe, The causes 
 of this intellectual torpor were various. There 
 was no free political life : and not much security 
 or repose, when the Roman imperial system was 
 broken up. The mind of Europe was fettered 
 by rigid dogma : the philosophy of Aristotle, 
 so far as it was known, was turned into a cast- 
 iron system in which no large principle could 
 be questioned. Greek was almost unknown in 
 the West : but the great Greek writers were 
 still studied at Byzantium, expounded and ex- 
 cerpted with vast industry, but with no real 
 appreciation of their spirit, under the pressure 
 of sacerdotalism and despotism. The Eastern 
 Empire was encroached upon by successful 
 Arabian inroads. The invaders, however, were
 
 290 LECTURES ON CLASSICAL SUBJECTS 
 
 not mere barbarians. They appropriated Greek 
 learning as well as Greek territory. Aristotle's 
 writings were translated into Syriac and Arabic. 
 These versions were in turn translated into 
 Latin when the Saracens extended their con- 
 quests towards the West. Thus the doctrines 
 of Aristotle were conveyed to Western Europe 
 — surely the most circuitous and unsatisfactory 
 method by which the thoughts of a great 
 teacher have ever been imparted to mankind ! 
 The poetry and imaginative literature of the 
 Middle Ages was fantastic and unreal. The 
 old Greek and Roman stories were known from 
 Ovid and other sources, but they were cast 
 into a form which would have repelled and 
 amused the Greeks and Romans. The renewed 
 influence of Greece and Rome was needed to 
 inculcate a saner judgment, a firmer grasp of the 
 realities of life, and a more acute sense for what 
 is consistent and beautiful in literary form. 
 What the Middle Ages bestowed upon classic 
 texts was not appreciative study, but mechanical 
 labour. The copying of manuscripts was sedu- 
 lously practised in many monasteries, though 
 forbidden in others. It was at best an exercise, 
 sometimes imposed to keep the weaker brethren
 
 PROGRESS OF CLASSICAL STUDIES 291 
 
 out of mischief, or to enforce the lesson of 
 industry and perseverance. There were gHm- 
 merings of light at times, bold attempts made 
 by individuals to arrive at better methods. But 
 there was no diffused vitality. The classical 
 writers, on the whole, met with neither insight 
 nor respect : one or other of their ideas was 
 taken to stop a gap in some fabric of scholastic 
 dogma, very much as a fragment of an ancient 
 marble pillar was sometimes inserted in the 
 wall of a house. 
 
 The dawn of a better age was accompanied 
 by the study of Greek. If we summarise very 
 roughly the debt we owe to Greece and Rome, 
 we may say that Poetry and Thought, Science 
 and Philosophy, belong to Greece : Rhetoric and 
 Law have come to us from Rome. But Rhetoric 
 is not in itself an inspiring force or impulse : 
 it is only mastery of expression, the deliberate 
 pursuit of dignity and grace in language. 
 There must also be ideas to expound ; and 
 these were ultimately Greek. To Dante, who 
 wrote his great poem about 1300, Virgil was 
 still the poet of poets, a position of supremacy 
 which the Roman owed in part to the supposed 
 Messianic prophecy of the fourth Eclogue and
 
 292 LECTURES ON CLASSICAL SUBJECTS 
 
 to the fact that, in some of his views of human 
 life, he seemed to make a near approach to 
 the ideas of Christian morality. But Greek 
 began to be known to Italian poets of the 
 next generation. Petrarch, who wrote much 
 Latin, both in verse and prose, knew some 
 Greek in his old age, and Boccaccio knew more. 
 Through Boccaccio's efforts, a chair of Greek 
 was instituted at Florence in 1357, and its 
 first occupant was his former tutor, a Calabrian 
 Greek named Leontius Pilatus. 
 
 The impulse, then, was Greek : but the form 
 which the new ideas took, the spirit in which 
 the early Italian 'humanists' worked, was largely 
 Roman. What was revived in literature was the 
 culture of Roman imperial times ; elegance of 
 style was striven after, to write prose like 
 Cicero's, or to compose graceful and correct 
 Latin verses. The point of view was ' aesthetic ' : 
 the aim was to enjoy the classics as literary 
 masterpieces and to imitate them as far as 
 different conditions allowed. It was a time of 
 literary enthusiasm rather than of laborious 
 research. This enthusiasm resulted in the eager 
 quest of classical texts, and many were brought 
 to light from the neglected libraries of the
 
 PROGRESS OF CLASSICAL STUDIES 293 
 
 monasteries.' Poggio Bracciolini, papal secretary 
 at the Council of Constance in 14 16, was con- 
 spicuous for his zeal in this pursuit. In the 
 course of his visit to Switzerland he discovered 
 at St. Gallen a Quintilian, as well as texts of 
 Lucretius, Manilius, and other Latin poets. It 
 is difficult for us now to realise the feelings of 
 a discoverer like Petrarch or Poggio. If we 
 suppose that the works of Shakespeare and 
 Milton were entirely lost and that we in this 
 country knew little of any literature, but had 
 become aware of the value of a great literature 
 and had felt its spell : and that in these circum- 
 stances a copy of Hamlet or Paradise Lost came 
 to light : we may form some idea of what is 
 meant to the Italian humanists to recover a lost 
 work of Cicero. The analogy is not an inexact 
 one. It was not an alien literature that they 
 were unearthing. Cicero and they were alike 
 Italians. Some of them wished to revive the 
 ancient form of the language and to make Latin 
 once more the speech of Italy. In the last ten 
 years the experience of Poggio has been in 
 some degree repeated, at least for the scholar 
 and specialist, in the case of Greek authors. 
 We have recovered the ' KQ^vamv TroXirela,
 
 294 LECTURES ON CLASSICAL SUBJECTS 
 
 Herondas and Bacchylides. A similar though 
 less important discovery of Latin texts took 
 place in the early years of last century. 
 
 The classical revival in Italy, meaning as it 
 did freedom of thought and the claim to question 
 all authority, was arrested in the latter half of 
 the sixteenth century by a renewal of ecclesiastical 
 restrictions. Muretus, the last of the ' humanists,' 
 an elegant writer of Ciceronian Latin, died in 
 1585. But it was only in its earlier stages that 
 the movement had been exclusively Italian. 
 It soon spread beyond the Alps ; its most 
 distinguished representatives in the north were 
 the German Reuchlin and the Dutch scholar 
 Erasmus, who was professor of Greek at Cam- 
 bridge for a short time from 1509. In our 
 northern islands there were at least two native 
 scholars of this period. Linacre taught Greek 
 and Medicine at Oxford about 15 00. The other 
 was George Buchanan, who died at Edinburgh 
 in 1582. Buchanan was known throughout 
 Europe for his accomplishments as a scholar, 
 and, among others, for his command of Latin 
 verse. Scaliger said of him : ' Buchananus unus 
 est in tota Europa omnes post se relinquens in 
 Latina poesi.' It is an art which since that
 
 PROGRESS OF CLASSICAL STUDIES 295 
 
 time his countrymen have rather persistently 
 neglected. And there is too much justification 
 for Dr. Johnson's remark on the subject of 
 Buchanan. A Scotchman had said to him, ' You 
 can say of Buchanan what you cannot say of 
 any English scholar of the time.' ' Sir,' said the 
 Doctor, ' you can say that he was the only 
 scholar of his country' 
 
 Apart from Holland and Britain, there was 
 diligent study of the classics at Paris, and several 
 distinguished scholars lectured there while Italy 
 was still the main centre of philological activity. 
 Among these was the Latin scholar Lambinus 
 (i 520-1 572), now perhaps best known as an 
 early editor of Lucretius. He and his prede- 
 cessors prepared the way for the second great 
 period of European scholarship, a period in 
 which on the whole the pre-eminence belongs to 
 France, though before or shortly after 1600 the 
 best scholars of France had left that country, 
 Scaliger going to Leyden in 1593 and Casaubon 
 to England in 16 10. Scholarship flourished 
 in France while France was Protestant : the 
 supremacy of the Church of Rome fettered its 
 progress, as had been the case in Italy. In 
 the French period a new tendency manifested
 
 296 LECTURES ON CLASSICAL SUBJECTS 
 
 itself. The change is well described by the late 
 Mark Pattison in his Life of Casaubon (p. 452). 
 ' The interest of the educated world/ he says, 
 ' was transferred from the form to the matter of 
 ancient literature. Masses of useful knowledge, 
 natural or political, the social experience of many 
 generations, were found to have lain unnoticed in 
 books which had been all the while in every 
 one's hands. The knowledge and wisdom thus 
 buried in the Greek writers presented a striking 
 contrast to the barren sophistic, which formed 
 the curriculum of the schools. It became the 
 task of the scholars of the second period of the 
 classical revival to disinter this knowledge. The 
 classics, which had been the object of taste, 
 became the object of science. Philology had 
 meant composition, and verbal emendation ; it 
 now meant the apprehension of the ideas and 
 usages of the ancient world. Scholars had 
 exerted themselves to write ; they now bent all 
 their effort to know. The period of youthful 
 enjoyment was at an end ; the time of manhood, 
 and of drudgery, was entered upon. There 
 came now into existence what has ever since 
 been known as " learning," in the special sense 
 of the term. The first period of humanism, in
 
 PROGRESS OF CLASSICAL STUDIES 297 
 
 which the words of the ancient authors had 
 been studied, was thus the preparatory school 
 for the humanism of the second period, in which 
 the matter was the object of attention. As 
 Italy had been the home of classical taste in 
 the first period, France became the home of 
 classical learning in the second.' 
 
 It would take long even to enumerate the 
 achievements of Scaliger and Casaubon in classi- 
 cal philology. It may suffice to mention, as 
 characteristic of the new movement, Scaliger's 
 work in chronology {De emendatione teniporuni), 
 and his eiTorts to advance the study of in- 
 scriptions and coins. Neither Scaliger nor Casau- 
 bon was free from the limitations of his age. 
 Neither, for instance, fully understood or ap- 
 preciated Greek philosophical thought or its 
 relation to Greek life and Greek history. But 
 both possessed a knowledge of the contents of 
 ancient literature which has hardly, if at all, 
 been equalled since. 
 
 The next stage of European scholarship is 
 one of perhaps greater interest for us, since 
 England played a larger part in it. If 
 Petrarch may stand for the first period, and 
 Scaliger for the second, the prominent and
 
 298 LECTURES ON CLASSICAL SUBJECTS 
 
 representative figure in the third is an English- 
 man, and the countries which now take the 
 lead in classical study are England and the 
 Netherlands. This third period extends to 
 about 1790, when Wolf inaugurated the fourth 
 and last. What, it may be asked, remained 
 to be done ? The form of ancient literature 
 had been the object of enthusiastic admiration 
 and imitation with the Italians : the matter or 
 contents had been exhaustively studied by their 
 successors. Was not the progress complete ? 
 Had not classical literature been fully revealed 
 to the mind of Western Europe ? In one 
 sense it had. But it was somewhat like an 
 antique statue which has been brought to light 
 by the spade, but not yet freed from all 
 accretions and impurities, which stands in need 
 of further scrubbing and polishing before its 
 outlines can be seen in all their beauty and 
 precision. In the course of transmission through 
 the dark ages, the classical texts had suffered 
 considerable obscuration. Copied by careless 
 or ignorant scribes — the ' oscitans librarius ' 
 whose vagaries have perhaps been too often 
 invoked by some ingenious critics — the texts 
 undoubtedly contained still a great many flaws
 
 PROGRESS OF CLASSICAL STUDIES 299 
 
 and errors which could be removed by diligent 
 and minute scrutiny. This was the task of 
 the third period. It was neither creative and 
 ardent like the first, nor encyclopaedic in its 
 material knowledge like the second, but critical 
 and grammatical. It examined manuscripts 
 with more care, though not in the most scien- 
 tific way ; it endeavoured to arrive at clear and 
 exact canons of idiom, and to formulate the 
 true laws of metre ; it applied stricter tests, 
 and discriminated the spurious and the authentic 
 in ancient writings with greater severity of 
 judgment. 
 
 Bentley, the English representative of this 
 movement, became master of Trinity College, 
 Cambridge, in 1700, when he had already 
 written his famous examination of the supposed 
 Epistles of Phalaris. A new force appeared 
 in the world of scholarship, a bolder and more 
 robust intelligence, accompanied by a gift of 
 incisive and forcible exposition such as had 
 not before been known. The appeal was now 
 to sound common sense and to the canons of 
 good taste. Bentley was prepared to disregard 
 the testimony of manuscripts if it presented 
 to him something self-contradictory, futile or
 
 302 LECTURES ON CLASSICAL SUBJECTS 
 
 The fourth and last period has been one of 
 great and varied activity, especially in Germany. 
 It is undoubtedly to Germany that the supremacy 
 in this period belongs ; for though there has 
 been a good deal of misdirected effort, the 
 amount of sound and permanent work done far 
 outweighs that of any other nation. It is not 
 so easy to define the tendency of this period 
 as it was in the case of earlier stages. What 
 kind of knowledge has been its ideal ? Cer- 
 tainly a comprehensive and encyclopaedic know- 
 ledge, as in the period of Scaliger and Casaubon ; 
 but knowledge better organised and more scien- 
 tific, the application of a better method in all 
 departments of philology, and the co-ordination 
 of these departments in a single whole, so that 
 one throws light upon another. If any one 
 man deserves to be named as representative of 
 this period, it is probably Wolf We are apt 
 to think of Wolf as a mere sceptic, a destruc- 
 tive critic who shattered the belief in a single 
 great poet Homer. But Wolf was much more 
 than that. The Prolegomena was not his only 
 work, and he exercised great influence through 
 his lectures. Wolf's destruction was of the kind 
 which results in reconstruction. He asked
 
 PROGRESS OF CLASSICAL STUDIES 303 
 
 questions which were really unavoidable, and 
 to which his successors, working on his own 
 lines, were sure to give a better and fuller 
 answer. 
 
 In the early years of last century there 
 occurred, a renewal of the experience of Petrarch 
 and Poggio^ — a discovery of Latin texts. Poggio 
 had unearthed complete texts or codices. The 
 quite recent discoveries have consisted in fragile 
 papyri, preserved for us in many cases by the 
 exceptional dryness of the sands of Egypt. 
 Other papyri, calcined and more fragile still, 
 had been recovered at Herculaneum in the eigh- 
 teenth century. The material of the new texts 
 discovered in the second and third decades of 
 last century was the thicker and tougher one 
 of parchment {inenibrana). It is a material 
 which can be scraped clean and used a second 
 time, and when so treated it was a ' palimpsest,' 
 7raA//x\|/^/o-T09. The earlier writing was often 
 imperfectly deleted and still capable of being 
 deciphered. It was such obliterated texts that 
 now came to light. The fortunate finder was 
 an Italian, Angelo Mai, who became a cardinal 
 in 1838, and died in 1854. He had been 
 librarian in the Ambrosian Library at Milan
 
 302 LECTURES ON CLASSICAL SUBJECTS 
 
 The fourth and last period has been one of 
 great and varied activity, especially in Germany. 
 It is undoubtedly to Germany that the supremacy 
 in this period belongs ; for though there has 
 been a good deal of misdirected effort, the 
 amount of sound and permanent work done far 
 outweighs that of any other nation. It is not 
 so easy to define the tendency of this period 
 as it was in the case of earlier stages. What 
 kind of knowledge has been its ideal ? Cer- 
 tainly a comprehensive and encyclopaedic know- 
 ledge, as in the period of Scaliger and Casaubon ; 
 but knowledge better organised and more scien- 
 tific, the application of a better method in all 
 departments of philology, and the co-ordination 
 of these departments in a single whole, so that 
 one throws light upon another. If any one 
 man deserves to be named as representative of 
 this period, it is probably Wolf We are apt 
 to think of Wolf as a mere sceptic, a destruc- 
 tive critic who shattered the belief in a single 
 great poet Homer. But Wolf was much more 
 than that. The Prolegomena was not his only 
 work, and he exercised great influence through 
 his lectures. Wolf's destruction was of the kind 
 which results in reconstruction. He asked
 
 PROGRESS OF CLASSICAL STUDIES 30 
 
 0^0 
 
 questions which were really unavoidable, and 
 to which his successors, working on his own 
 lines, were sure to give a better and fuller 
 answer. 
 
 In the early years of last century there 
 occurred, a renewal of the experience of Petrarch 
 and Poggio — a discovery of Latin texts, Poggio 
 had unearthed complete texts or codices. The 
 quite recent discoveries have consisted in fragile 
 papyri, preserved for us in many cases by the 
 exceptional dryness of the sands of Egypt. 
 Other papyri, calcined and more fragile still, 
 had been recovered at Herculaneum in the eigh- 
 teenth century. The material of the new texts 
 discovered in the second and third decades of 
 last century was the thicker and tougher one 
 of parchment {inembraiid). It is a material 
 which can be scraped clean and used a second 
 time, and when so treated it was a ' palimpsest,' 
 7raXiV\|/>?(TT09. The earlier writing was often 
 imperfectly deleted and still capable of being 
 deciphered. It was such obliterated texts that 
 now came to light. The fortunate finder was 
 an Italian, Angelo Mai, who became a cardinal 
 in 1838, and died in 1854. He had been 
 librarian in the Ambrosian Library at Milan
 
 304 LECTURES ON CLASSICAL SUBJECTS 
 
 and in the Vatican. Among his important 
 discoveries was a very ancient manuscript of 
 Plautus. The writing had been partially effaced 
 to make way for a portion of the Vulgata, the 
 second book of Kings. Several passages from 
 the hitherto unknown ' Vidularia ' have been 
 deciphered from this text, and it throws much 
 light upon other plays already known. This 
 was at Milan. In the Vatican, Mai discovered 
 a large part of Cicero's treatise De Re Publica. 
 It would be vain to attempt even to enume- 
 rate the scholars of this fourth period. Most 
 of them have devoted their energies to the 
 investigation of ancient Greek literature and 
 civilisation, the more fascinating and fertile 
 field for original research. Latin scholars have 
 been fewer, and it is perhaps not quite so hope- 
 less a task to review their work briefly : the 
 critical sagacity which Lachmann brought to 
 bear upon the text of Lucretius and other 
 authors : the revolution which Ritschl effected 
 in the treatment of the text of Plautus, and 
 in the method of weighing and utilising 
 manuscripts in general : the acuteness of 
 Haupt in determining the authorship of various 
 Latin poems : the instructive and comprehen-
 
 PROGRESS OF CLASSICAL STUDIES 305 
 
 sive studies of Ribbeck in the field of earlv 
 Roman poetry : the mastery of Latin idiom 
 and the critical insight which enabled Madvig 
 in Denmark to emend finally a large number 
 of passages in Latin prose authors. A complete 
 survey of the period would have to include 
 historians and antiquarians also, the searching 
 examination to which Niebuhr subjected early 
 Roman history, and the work of the greatest 
 ancient historian of recent times, Theodor 
 Mommsen, whose history of Rome has only one 
 defect of any magnitude, namely, that it is 
 not free from political bias. Mommsen is as 
 distinctly a Caesarian and imperialist in his 
 views as Grote was democratic. This may 
 perhaps be taken as an indication of the vitality 
 of classical studies and the closeness of their 
 connection with modern life. 
 
 A good and complete history of scholarship 
 
 has not yet been written. What I have tried 
 
 to do in this lecture is to give some such 
 
 impression as might be derived from looking at 
 
 the Table of Contents in such a work. I have 
 
 named a few prominent names and indicated 
 
 some of the large divisions into which the 
 
 u
 
 3o6 LECTURES ON CLASSICAL SUBJECTS 
 
 subject falls. I will conclude with two reflec- 
 tions which are rather obviously suggested by- 
 such a survey. We have seen the classical 
 authors forming the object of laborious and 
 unremittent study from generation to generation, 
 becoming as time went on better understood, 
 and if never more ardently admired than in the 
 earliest Italian period, yet continuing to elicit 
 a hardly less steadfast if more discriminating 
 devotion. The work of the commentator, on 
 the other hand, generally passes away. He 
 interprets the classics for his own age, and a 
 succeeding age calls for a new exponent. The 
 reason is that the great writings of Greece and 
 Rome are works of art. If you ask a sculptor 
 whether the Venus of Melos or the Hermes of 
 Olympia has been ' superseded,' he will merely 
 laugh at the question. So it is with a great 
 work of literary art. It never can be superseded. 
 A later age may produce something greater, but 
 even if it does, it is of necessity something 
 different. If the earlier work is a real master- 
 piece, a model of correct thinking and of lucid 
 expression, it retains the same instructiveness 
 and the same charm that it had before. The 
 notion that classical authors have ceased to be
 
 PROGRESS OF CLASSICAL STUDIES 307 
 
 worth studying is due to a confusion of ideas. 
 A scientific theory such as that of the fixity 
 of the earth is in time exploded or superseded. 
 But great poems, speeches or histories are not 
 superseded, any more than the pyramids are 
 superseded by the building of a new hotel in 
 Cairo. 
 
 The commentator, not the author, is super- 
 seded. But the commentator's work does not 
 utterly pass away, it is not entirely fruitless. 
 His illustrations, the explanations he has given, 
 are adopted by his successor, who can make a 
 better commentary by starting with these materials, 
 adding to them and adapting them to new 
 conditions. The art of interpretation has been 
 consistently progressive, and the second reflec- 
 tion to which I would call your attention is 
 this. The classical student of the present da}' 
 has advantages which none of his predecessors 
 had. By the prolonged labour of scholars the 
 classical authors have been made more accessible. 
 Paths have been cut, as it were, through what 
 was before a tangled wilderness. Principles 
 can be taught to a schoolboy in half an hour 
 which it took years of toil to verify and formu- 
 late. So familiar a matter as the elementary
 
 3o8 LECTURES ON CLASSICAL SUBJECTS 
 
 Structure of the tragic senarius was only settled 
 by Porson at the end of the eighteenth century. 
 One of the reasons why classical literature 
 retains its value as an instrument of education is 
 just this, that so much has been done to formulate 
 and elucidate the principles of grammar and 
 the principles of style on which it is built. 
 We have to deal not merely with a beautiful 
 or impressive work which excites vague admira- 
 tion, but with a work which we can to some 
 extent analyse and explain.
 
 X. 
 
 AIMS AND METHODS OF CLASSICAL 
 
 STUDY.i 
 
 There has been but little real discussion on 
 this subject in Great Britain. Classical edu- 
 cation is generally accepted as an established 
 fact, or its value is criticised from some partial 
 point of view, and in contrast with the claims 
 of some other study. Most people could give 
 a very distinct answer to the question, What 
 is the object of study in botany, in astronomy, 
 in geology ? Many people could define with 
 some precision the sphere or object studied in 
 ethics or political economy. But a classical 
 student would often be puzzled by the ques- 
 
 ^ For many principles and examples I am indebted to Bockh's 
 Encyclopddie der philologischen IVissenschaften and to the Handlmch 
 der Classischen Alterthumswissensckaft, edited by Ivan Mtiller 
 (vol. i.).
 
 3IO LECTURES ON CLASSICAL SUBJECTS 
 
 tion what he is studying, and how and why. 
 He would perhaps answer, as some of Socrates' 
 acquaintances answered similar questions, by 
 saying that he was studying Homer and 
 Sophocles, Virgil and Tacitus. If we asked 
 him whether he was studying the formation of 
 their words and the construction of their sen- 
 tences, or the use which they make of words 
 as a vehicle of expression, or the thoughts which 
 they express, he would probably have to answer 
 — would answer if he was a thorough, intelli- 
 gent student — that he was studying all three. 
 We should have made an advance in our 
 inquiry, but we should still lack a coherent and 
 complete account of the matter. 
 
 It is perhaps unfortunate that the word 
 ' philology ' has not become really current in 
 English. ' Comparative philology ' is a familiar 
 phrase ; but it does not designate well what it 
 is meant to designate, and it has obscured the 
 proper use of the substantive, unqualified by 
 ' comparative.' Comparative philology means the 
 study of the forms which words assume in 
 different cognate languages, and of the changes 
 which they undergo from generation to genera- 
 tion. But by its etymology the word philology
 
 AIMS AND METHODS 311 
 
 does not express this at all. ' Words ' in this 
 sense are not Xoyoi, but pyj/jLara or Xe^ei? ; a 
 spoken tongue is yXcocra-u. Xoyoq means an 
 argument or proposition, an intelligible state- 
 ment : a group of words which conveys a mean- 
 ing. The cpiXoXoyo? then is one who is in- 
 terested in what men have said : in their 
 intelligible utterances : the expression which 
 they have found for their ideas and experiences. 
 The utterances of some nations have a stronger 
 claim upon us than those of others. Their life 
 and thought are more instructive, better adapted 
 to give us an insight into the meaning of life 
 as a whole and the progress of civilisation. A 
 ' classical ' writer would be one who had used 
 a powerful and flexible language with a master 
 hand for the expression of ideas which must 
 have an interest for all time. Such writings 
 are the immediate object of classical education. 
 And what we are dealing with in studying 
 them is obviously threefold : the mere language, 
 forms of words and constructions ; the manner 
 in which these are used ; and the thoughts or 
 experiences which are revealed to us through 
 them. We are to study then the language, the 
 literature, and the life, or the life and thought, of
 
 312 LECTURES ON CLASSICAL SUBJECTS 
 
 an ancient people. How are these three studies 
 related to one another? The interest of the 
 first is a scientific interest ; that of the second, an 
 aesthetic one ; that of the third, a philosophical 
 one. What is their relative importance ? 
 
 From one point of view — that of the scientific 
 enthusiast — all knowledge has an absolute value, 
 and it is presumptuous to say ' this is higher 
 than that.' But from another, the three studies 
 may be placed in an ascending scale of impor- 
 tance, a scale in which the lower exist as means 
 to the higher. We study language in order to 
 be able rightly to appreciate literature ; we study 
 literature in order to arrive at a knowledge of 
 the life and ideas of its writers. If there is a 
 higher and lower in the order of the world at 
 all, we must place them in such a scale, and 
 place them above natural sciences, in so far 
 as their objects are higher and more complex. 
 The processes of vegetation stand on a higher 
 plane than the mechanical action of fire and 
 water ; animal life stands above vegetable ; and 
 we are studying a lower object when we are 
 examining the cells of a beehive than when we 
 are investigating the institutions and beliefs of 
 mankind. So within our triple group : we are
 
 A /MS AND METHODS 313 
 
 dealing with a higher object when we come to 
 the second — for instance, when we discriminate 
 various forms of the drama — than when we trace 
 the stages of phonetic change, and follow modi- 
 fications of grammatical usage, which came about 
 with little or no consciousness on the part of 
 their makers ; and the proper appreciation of 
 the whole life and thought of an ancient people 
 stands higher still. 
 
 It must be remembered that we have been 
 speaking only of the things studied, the objects 
 of inquiry. The relative value of the method. 
 of inquiry in each case, as a mental discipline, 
 is a quite different question. Superiority in that 
 respect is not necessarily claimed for the study 
 which we have so far put highest. It is con- 
 ceivable that the method of geology might be 
 more practically instructive qua method. I do 
 not suppose that it is. But it would be well 
 if students of human life acknowledged that the 
 method of their sciences is more open to abuse. 
 Corruptio optiini pessinia. Inquiries in these 
 spheres are too apt to degenerate into rhetoric 
 and fine writing. In natural science there is 
 something like a certainty of solidity and exact- 
 ness within its sphere. But the moral of this
 
 314 LECTURES ON CLASSICAL SUBJECTS 
 
 is surely not to make natural science the staple 
 of general education, and to reject everything 
 else, but rather to improve the method of the 
 sciences of man until they include among their 
 merits the qualities of some natural sciences 
 which at present perhaps surpass them. 
 
 ' Philology ' — if we may assume the right to 
 use the word as a symbol for the inquiry which 
 I have defined — means clear and ordered infor- 
 mation concerning the language, literature, and 
 life of a nation. It means this when regarded 
 as a science or a body of truth standing on 
 record once for all. But it has other aspects 
 which we cannot exclude. It is progressive; it 
 implies an art or method. And, again, it is, in 
 practice, used as an instrument of education or 
 mental training. So that we seem to have two 
 further inquiries before us — 
 
 1. What is the art of the scholar or philolo- 
 gian ? What is it his business to do, and what 
 are the principles on which he proceeds? 
 
 2. How is the whole of philology — science 
 and art together — best applied to the purposes 
 of education ? that is, general education, or the 
 training of those who are not learning philology 
 k-Ki Teyyi], with the view of being professional
 
 AIMS AND METHODS 315 
 
 philologians themselves, but who will be called 
 upon in real life to engage in some quite differ- 
 ent and perhaps very practical pursuit. 
 
 The art or business of the philologian, his 
 Tey(vrj or epyov, is a double one, to interpret and 
 to criticise: that is (i) to arrive at and explain 
 the true meaning of what is written ; (2) to 
 decide whether a word, a passage, or a whole 
 treatise is genuine, whether it is what it pro- 
 fesses to be ; and here we encounter the science 
 of palaeography, an inquiry which Aristotle would 
 call vTTtjperiKr'), the handmaid of criticism, whose 
 aim is to undo the mischief and confusion which 
 lapse of time has wrought. Interpretation and 
 criticism must be considered in greater detail. 
 
 To interpret a passage in any author may 
 involve different kinds of knowledge. Inevitably 
 we encounter here the same triple distinction as 
 before. It may involve linguistic knowledge, or 
 literary knowledge, or knowledge of facts and 
 institutions — what we may call, in a wide sense, 
 historical knowledge. But in dealing with the 
 art of philology, it is in some ways convenient 
 to adopt a rather different classification, and to 
 specify four kinds of problems instead of three. 
 
 We may distinguish, in the first place, two
 
 3i6 LECTURES ON CLASSICAL SUBJECTS 
 
 large classes — problems involving knowledge of 
 facts or of history, and problems involving know- 
 ledge of language ; in other words, problems of 
 matter or content, and problems of form. The 
 latter class may next be sub-divided thus : 
 
 1. Difficulties involving the elementary laws 
 of the language as a whole, of Latin or Greek — 
 grammatical difficulties. 
 
 2. Difficulties involving the canons or prin- 
 ciples of a particular species of literature. To 
 take simple instances, the canons of interpreta- 
 tion are not the same for tragedy and comedy, 
 for poetry and prose. 
 
 3. Difficulties depending for their solution 
 upon knowledge of the idiosyncrasies of the 
 particular writer who is being studied. 
 
 Speaking roughly and generally, we may add 
 that the sphere of observation is becoming 
 gradually narrower as we pass from the first 
 of these classes to the third. It is first the 
 whole language ; then writings of a particular 
 class ; lastly, writings of one man. 
 
 Further, as the field is narrowed, the problems 
 seem on the whole to increase in complexity 
 and subtlety, though no doubt some problems 
 of class I are harder than some of class 3.
 
 AIMS AND METHODS 317 
 
 We may notice also that this view seems to 
 be confirmed by the history of Greek criticism. 
 The problems of greatest difficulty, we should 
 expect, would be arrived at last. And as a 
 matter of fact, the three great grammarians of 
 Alexandria to some extent illustrate our three 
 stages of progress. Zenodotus, the earliest of 
 them, had little scruple about appealing to 
 analogies and precedents of any age and any 
 place. Besides applying the moral and social 
 canons of his own day to the criticism of 
 Homer, he frequently explained or emended 
 Homer's language by the light of later Greek 
 idiom or by the help of some dialect such as 
 that of 'the Cretans.' Aristophanes can be 
 shown by at least one instance to have made 
 an advance upon this view. Anacreon had 
 spoken of a hind as horned (Kepoecrcri]?) ; 
 Zenodotus read another adjective, epo€(rcrii<; in 
 the dative plural, agreeing with a contiguous 
 word ' forests ' (ev i/X>;? epoecrartj? aTroXeicpOeh airo 
 liiaTpog). But Aristophanes refuted the con- 
 jecture by pointing out that several other 
 poets had done the same thing — notably Pindar 
 and Simonides : in other words, he had come 
 to see that the canons of interpretation were
 
 3i8 LECTURES ON CLASSICAL SUBJECTS 
 
 not the same for poetry and for a treatise 
 in what we should call natural history or 
 science. It was reserved for Aristarchus to go 
 further still, and insist that a poet should be 
 studied in the light of his own language ; that 
 Homer must be his own commentator, and 
 that the duty of the critic is to collect passages 
 where a word occurs, and determine its mean- 
 ing by their help ; that Homer is to be 
 interpreted not by the laws of Greek in 
 general, nor by the laws of poetry in general, 
 but by his own usage and style — ' what is 
 habitual with the poet,' as Aristarchus ex- 
 pressed it, TO eOl/ULOV TOV 7rOlt)TOV. 
 
 I. Let us consider a few examples of inter- 
 pretation and criticism which fall under these 
 various heads, taking first questions which 
 involve historical knowledge — historical know- 
 ledge in the widest sense, information about 
 the politics or religion or morals of the ancients. 
 How much knowledge is necessary to enable 
 us to understand the simple phrase, ' the 
 pfoddess,' in the various contexts where it 
 occurs ! In the mouth of an Athenian, ^ Oeo? 
 generally means the protectress of Athens,
 
 ALUS AND METHODS 319 
 
 Pallas. At the beginning of Plato's Republic, 
 however, ^ Oeo? means the Thracian Bendis, 
 and in Theocritus o 0eo? is Hecate. The dual 
 again, rw Oeco, meant at Athens the great 
 goddesses of Eleusis, Demeter and Persephone. 
 At Sparta, rw o-ico meant the Dioscuri, Castor 
 and Pollux : in Boeotia, Amphion and Zethus, 
 the founders of Thebes. When Catullus 
 addresses a goddess as ' Rhamnusia virgo,' 
 we require to know that Nemesis or Adrasteia 
 had a sanctuary at Rhamnus on the coast of 
 Attica. To take an instance from history in 
 the narrower sense of the word : Lucan, after 
 describing how Caesar set aside the tribune 
 Metellus, and broke into the treasury, con- 
 cludes with one of his epigrammatic lines — 
 ' Pauperiorque fuit tum primum Ca^sare Roma ' 
 (' Now, for the first time, Rome was poorer 
 than Caesar '). This is not an allusion to 
 Julius Caesar's debts, as some critics have 
 thought. Lucan is thinking of his own day, 
 and meant to say, ' This was the beginning 
 of the present system, under which the imperial 
 Fiscus is far more important than the old 
 Aera^'ium! 
 
 More difficult questions arise when an author
 
 320 LECTURES ON CLASSICAL SUBJECTS 
 
 says something which is seemingly at variance 
 with facts of history known to us. Thus in 
 the eighth ode of the fourth book Horace 
 seems to confuse the elder and the younger 
 Scipio : he speaks of the burning of Carthage 
 as an achievement of a hero whose deeds were 
 celebrated by the ' Calabrian Muses.' It was 
 the younger Scipio who burnt Carthage, the 
 elder whose exploits were sung by Ennius. Is 
 this a case of interpolation, or has Horace 
 stretched a poet's privilege and fused into one 
 the two great Africani, as if the younger were 
 only the elder re-embodied on earth again ? 
 Here we may doubt the genuineness of the 
 text. In other cases we are able to condemn 
 without much hesitation. Bentley's dissection 
 of the spurious Letters of Phalaris is the best 
 known piece of work in this field. An interest- 
 ing case is that of an epigram quoted in one 
 of the ancient Lives of Homer. It is said to 
 have been inscribed on the pedestal of a statue 
 of Pisistratus at Athens. ' Thrice I ruled 
 Athens, and thrice was driven into exile,' is 
 the substance of the first two lines : in the 
 next two Pisistratus claims to have collected 
 the poems of Homer, and the last two lines
 
 AIMS AND METHODS 321 
 
 claim Homer as an Athenian citizen, Smyrna 
 being a colony of Athens. Now the facts are 
 wrong. Pisistratus was driven out only twice, 
 for he died a tyrant ; and it is in the last 
 degree unlikely that a statue of Pisistratus would 
 be allowed to stand in a city where Harmodius 
 and Aristogiton received annual worship as the 
 heroic liberators of their country. And, again, 
 if there was a monument to a great ruler like 
 Pisistratus, it is hardly possible that two-thirds 
 of the record would be given to a mere literary 
 enterprise ! Some of the authorities whom 
 Wolf quoted for his theory of a Pisistratean 
 recension probably derived their information from 
 this late and spurious epigram. If his theory 
 had no better basis to stand upon than this 
 pedestal of a statue to Pisistratus, it would be 
 in a very shaky condition. It is not quite so 
 easily disposed of as that. But the matter 
 cannot be pursued further here. 
 
 II. Turn now to questions which involve 
 language rather than fact — the form rather than 
 the subject-matter of ancient writings. We 
 distinguished here three narrowing circles of 
 inquiry : the general laws of a language or
 
 322 LECTURES ON CLASSICAL SUBJECTS 
 
 dialect, the canons of a particular species of 
 literature, the idiosyncrasies of a particular 
 writer. 
 
 {a^ Problems of the first kind, those which 
 involve general principles of grammar, are very 
 familiar to the reader of commentaries, and I 
 do not propose to illustrate them at length. 
 Take one or two critical difficulties. ' Suus,' 
 as a general rule, must refer to the subject of 
 the sentence in which it occurs. The excep- 
 tions usually found are of the kind that are 
 said to ' prove the rule,' that is, they have some 
 principle in them. We can see why the rule 
 does not hold, e.g. ' in civitates guemque suas 
 dimisit.' But what is to be said of this 
 instance ? 
 
 ' Haec et plura refert, lacrimae sua verba sequuntur.' 
 This line occurs in the poem known as the 
 ' Consolatio ad Liviam,' an elegy on the death 
 of Drusus (line 165). Various infelicities and 
 irregularities of expression caused Haupt to 
 assign this poem to the fifteenth century, to 
 suppose that it was the work of an Italian 
 scholar at the revival of letters. This view has | 
 been disputed by more recent critics. If 'sua' 
 means ' her words,' it is difficult to believe that 
 
 I
 
 AIMS AND METHODS 323 
 
 * suus ' would be so used by any writer of the 
 age of Augustus or Tiberius. But I am inclined 
 to think that ' sua ' may be taken strictly and 
 referred to ' lacrimae ' : ' follow words all their 
 own,' i.e. lacrimosa, tearful, words which tears 
 have claimed or interrupted. For a Greek 
 example we may take the occurrence of the 
 word av6iJ.LiJ.o<5 in the text of the Platonic 
 dialogue Minos, avoixip-o^ is incorrectly formed 
 — it is so contrary to analogy that it must be 
 rejected as a misreading. The negative of 
 v6ixijj.o<i is (ivofxo^. Here again there is a signi- 
 ficant exception, aSoKi/uo? : there is not, in normal 
 Attic, a substantive Soko^ meaning repute or 
 approval. aSoKo<i would be unintelligible. 
 
 (d.) The canons which regulate a particular 
 species of writing often raise very interesting 
 questions ; generally, too, very difficult questions, 
 for we are here dealing with aesthetic criticism 
 and rules of art. How far may we pursue an 
 allegorical interpretation in the old comedy of 
 Athens ? Demos in the Knights deposes his 
 slave Cleon with the words, ' Give me back 
 my signet-ring : you shall not be my steward 
 (raium) any longer.' Is it safe to infer from 
 this that Cleon held some high financial office,
 
 324 LECTURES ON CLASSICAL SUBJECTS 
 
 answering to our Chancellor of the Exchequer ? 
 What are the limits of allegory in an ode of 
 Pindar? — a still more difficult question. Do 
 Pelias and Jason in the fourth Pythian answer 
 to Arcesilaus the king of Cyrene and the exile 
 Damophilus ? Both these questions, probably, 
 should be answered in the negative. But there 
 are other forms of composition in which allegory 
 goes much further — in Dante's poem, for instance, 
 to take a later instance. To find very elaborate 
 allegory, one must come to later ages ; for 
 allegory and symbolism have but a small place 
 in ancient literature and art. What of Horace ? 
 In the third ode of the third book he makes 
 Juno protest strenuously against the rebuilding 
 of Troy : ' Let leagues of sea roll between Ilium 
 and Rome, and the exiled Trojans may lord it 
 as they please.' There must be some virovoia 
 or hidden meaning here ; the idea is insisted 
 upon too strongly and at too great length to be 
 a mere fancy. But critics are divided as to 
 its significance. Julius Caesar is said to have 
 entertained a project for transferring the seat of 
 empire to Troy. Perhaps this was again talked 
 of, and Horace came to know that Augustus 
 was averse to it and wished it to be discouraged. 
 
 I
 
 AIMS AND METHODS 325 
 
 Another view is that the Troy which may not 
 be rebuilt is the old republican constitution ; 
 or, again, it is suggested that the passage is a 
 protest against the tendency to adopt Oriental 
 fashions and ideas, a tendency which Augustus' 
 opponent, Antony, had furnished a memorable 
 example. 
 
 The use of metaphor and figurative language, 
 like that of allegory, is different in different forms 
 of literature. The dithyramb in ancient Greece 
 allowed a greater license than any other kind 
 of composition. Here is a simple instance. In 
 the Odyssey (ix.) there occurs the phrase ^leptf 
 TToSl (pevye/mev (' To flee with nimble or supple 
 foot'). Some ancient interpreters took 'wet foot' 
 to mean a ship. This sense is rejected in the 
 Scholia as being SiOupa/uL^wSe^, in the manner of 
 the dithyramb. A dithyrambic poet might have 
 called a ship a ' wet foot,' but an epic poet could 
 not do so. We may note that tragedy in its 
 beginnings was closely connected with the dithy- 
 ramb, and gradually shook itself free from turgid 
 language of this kind. There is a good deal of 
 it in Aeschylus, less in Sophocles, and very 
 little in the plain and lucid Euripides. Is the 
 phrase which we meet with in the Antigone,
 
 326 LECTURES ON CLASSICAL SUBJECTS 
 
 line 601/ too dithyrambic for Sophoclean 
 tragedy ? 
 
 Several other important matters fall under 
 this head of literary interpretation. One of 
 these is the distinction between primitive or 
 simple poetry and the poetry of a late and 
 learned age. In a poet like Virgil or Milton 
 the meaning of a word or phrase cannot be 
 fully understood unless we take into account 
 the use which has been made of it by previous 
 poets. Milton applies the word ' nectareous ' to 
 the blood of an angel — 'the blood nectareous 
 flowed.' Bentley thought this must be a mis- 
 reading — that ' ichorous ' was what Milton wrote, 
 l-^^p being in Homer the blood of the gods, 
 while nectar is the Olympian equivalent for 
 wine. In this case, I think, Milton knew his 
 Homer better than Bentley ; for the adjective 
 v€KTapeo9 has a wide range of use and meaning — 
 Homer actually applies it to a ttmz'c, in book 
 xviii. It meant strange, rich or divine. ' Blood 
 ichorous ' is either a tautology or a contradiction 
 in terms ! 
 
 Again, we must be prepared to distinguish 
 
 ^ /car' aC viv (poivia deuiv 
 tQ)V veprepuv dfia k6vls.
 
 AIMS AND METHODS 327 
 
 between jest and earnest ; we must not treat 
 a familiar letter or a satire with the solemn 
 gravity which would be in place in interpreting 
 tragedy. When Augustus invited Horace to 
 become his private secretary, he wrote to Maece- 
 nas, ' Veniet ab ista parasitica mensa ad hanc 
 regiam ' (' He is to exchange the board of a 
 patron for that of a monarch'). If there were 
 any doubt that the words are playful, it would 
 be dispelled by the fact that the invitation was 
 refused. Horace preferred to stay where he 
 was. We seem to see that Augustus was not 
 on bad terms with his subjects, and was no 
 very oppressive despot, if it was possible for 
 him to jest with the adjective ' regius.' Another 
 instance of too serious interpretation occurs in 
 the comment of an editor upon a well-known 
 passage in Juvenal. The satirist is accused 
 of drawing no distinction between the crime of 
 murdering a mother and that of it/riting bad 
 verses. Juvenal compares Orestes and Nero : 
 he makes out a list of crimes which Orestes did 
 not commit, and he finishes off with the climax, 
 ' Troica non scripsit ' (' Orestes never wrote a 
 poem on the siege of Troy '). A critic might 
 perhaps object to the whole passage as flippant ;
 
 328 LECTURES ON CLASSICAL SUBJECTS 
 
 but if we remember that the murder of Agrip- 
 pina was a thing of the past — it happened nearly 
 half a century before Juvenal wrote — even that 
 charge loses something of its force. 
 
 The aesthetic appreciation of ancient poetry 
 depends very largely upon the proper study of 
 prosody and metre, a matter which is too often 
 neglected. We too often read an ode of 
 Pindar, or even of Horace, as if it were so 
 much poetical prose, without any thought of 
 the metre at all. No doubt Greek and Latin 
 verse is very difficult for us, because it is very 
 different in nature from English verse. In 
 Greek and Latin there are two things, quantity 
 and accent, which are not sharply distinguished 
 in our own language. We therefore tend to 
 fall into one extreme or the other — we attend 
 to the quantity and let nothing else be heard, 
 * arma virumque cano,' or we think of the 
 spoken accent and make the ' a ' of ' cano ' 
 long. To a Greek, and to an educated Roman 
 who was familiar with Greek poetry, accent was 
 a matter of quality or pitch : it was nothing 
 so gross and tangible as loudness or duration 
 of a sound : it was a musical difference, and 
 one so subtle as to remain almost entirely with-
 
 ALlfS AND METHODS 329 
 
 out effect upon the structure of verse — the very 
 earliest ItaHan poetry was perhaps to some 
 extent accentual, but we need not concern 
 ourselves with that exception now. The ancient 
 reader or hearer of verse must have been con- 
 scious of both quantity and accent ; and if we 
 are to appreciate properly any work of art, we 
 must surely reproduce the conditions under 
 which it was created and for which it was 
 intended. How is this to be done ? It may 
 seem a hard saying, but it is probably the 
 truth, that we must become so familiar with the 
 metrical structure of verse that we do not have 
 to think about it at all — it must suggest itself 
 to us mechanically and without effort. We shall 
 then have some attention to spare for the vary- 
 ing effects of accent. It should be possible for 
 any student to do this in the case of some of the 
 simpler and more common forms of verse, such 
 as the Hexameter. For the more complicated 
 choric verse of Pindar, I believe the only real 
 solution is to learn an ode by heart and repeat 
 it, giving effect to the metre, until it comes 
 to us easily and mechanically. How otherwise 
 can we put ourselves on a level with the ancient 
 hearer, to whom the thing was sung by a care-
 
 330 LECTURES ON CLASSICAL SUBJECTS 
 
 fully trained chorus ? He did not read it as 
 so much turgid prose. 
 
 To turn to a more mechanical aspect of the 
 matter, the metrical principles of a particular 
 form of composition often vitally affect the con- 
 stitution of the text. In a great many passages 
 of tragedy, the determination of the reading 
 involves this question : Did a tragic poet allow 
 a complete foot and a syncopated foot to 
 answer to each other in strophe and antistrophe ? 
 
 Could a trochee or tribrach, or ^^^, answer 
 
 to a single syllable on which the voice dwelt 
 for the duration of a whole foot (i — or J.)? 
 This is one of the most doubtful and difficult 
 problems in metrical criticism. But the study 
 of almost any poet involves some question of 
 form and structure. In Horace, for example, 
 there is the inquiry whether all the odes are to 
 be regarded as falling into stanzas of four lines. 
 We here meet with a new reason for doubting 
 the passage about the Scipios and Ennius ; for 
 the eighth ode of the fourth book has as it 
 stands thirty-four lines, and thirty-four is not a 
 multiple of four. 
 
 (c.) Interpretation and criticism, which depend 
 upon the peculiarities of a particular author —
 
 A/AfS AND METHODS 331 
 
 his ' personal equation ' — might be illustrated at 
 even greater length than our previous class of 
 problems. We must be content with glancing 
 at a few conspicuous instances. Aristarchus, 
 we have seen, was the great exponent of this 
 method in antiquity. He compared, for example, 
 all the passages where Homer uses the words 
 (p6/3o9, (po^eia-Oai, and their cognates, and he 
 made out that the words mean, not fear as an 
 emotion of the mind, to /caret y^v-)(t]v (5eo9, but 
 rout or flight. This once established, the few 
 passages where this meaning was impossible 
 fell under suspicion : cpo^eovro Se oi (ppeue? 
 evTog ! His heart took to flight within him ! 
 The true reading, Aristarchus determined, was 
 rpofxeovTo. Perhaps Aristarchus sometimes car- 
 ried his principle of ' analogy ' or regularity 
 too far, he laid down too rigid a canon ; but 
 he did work of immense value for the inter- 
 pretation of Homer, and most of his results 
 remain unshaken. 
 
 Let us try to apply the method of Aristarchus 
 to Virgil — let us look for to eOijuov tov TroitjTov. 
 Many editors find in Virgil a survival of the 
 participial sense of some adjectives : ' tuta lacu 
 nigro,' protected by a dark pool ; ' sublimibus alta
 
 332 LECTURES ON CLASSICAL SUBJECTS 
 
 columnis,' reared on high columns ; ' tepidaque 
 recentem caede locum,' flowing with warm blood 
 (' recens ' being an old present participle). Is 
 this a safe inference ? Is it not rather Virgil's 
 manner, his eOiyuoi^, to put an adjective in such 
 places ? ' fumantibus ardua saxis ' — ' ardua ' is not 
 a participle ! The text of Horace again raises in 
 various places difficult questions as to what is 
 Horatian and what un-Horatian. Would Horace 
 put the prosaic pronoun ' eius ' in a conspicuous 
 place in a Sapphic verse, ' muniant angues caput 
 eius ' ; and if not, is the line to be emended, 
 or the stanza in which it occurs condemned as a 
 whole ? Again, there is the well-known passage 
 in Book I., ' veris inhorruit adventus foliis,' the 
 coming of spring rustles, among the leaves, on 
 the leaves. This may be beautiful and imagina- 
 tive ; but is it quite like Horace ? Has it his 
 usual lucidity and precision ? I incline, somewhat 
 reluctantly, to the opinion that the emendation, 
 ' vepris ... ad ventum,' is right. It was made 
 by Bentley, with the help of some hints from 
 earlier critics. Certainly Bentley at times wields 
 too recklessly the sledge-hammer of a cold and 
 formal logic : he sometimes fails to appreciate 
 the delicacy and subtlety of a poet's language.
 
 AIMS AND METHODS 333 
 
 But in this particular instance one suspects that 
 it is sentimental to resist his view. 
 
 Criticism of the kind we are considering has 
 to deal not merely with particular expressions or 
 passages, but often with whole poems or treatises. 
 It denies to Demosthenes the speech ' on the 
 Halonnesus,' and would be justified in so doing 
 by a single phrase,^ in the last section of the 
 speech, if there were no other evidence for the 
 authorship of Hegesippus. This subject of 
 spurious writings is a very large one, and we 
 may leave it with a caution. The critic who 
 is disposed to deny that the Rhesus can be a 
 work of the youthful Euripides, or the Dialogue 
 De Oratoribus an early work of Tacitus, or the 
 Laws a work of Plato's old age, would do well 
 to ask himself at the outset what are the 
 degrees of divergence in quality between the un- 
 doubted works of the same author : if ' Pauline ' 
 had been published anonymously, and had been 
 included by some accident in Browning's poetical 
 works, would not the critics have expelled it 
 again ? And would the ordinary, careless 
 reader, who understood it from beginning to end 
 
 ^ tivtp vfieh rby iyKi(pa\ov ev toIs Kpordipoii Kai /jltj iv rats VT^pyais 
 KaTaireirarrjfJ.^voi' (popehe.
 
 334 LECTURES ON CLASSICAL SUBJECTS 
 
 without an effort, have ever been convinced that 
 it was a work by the author of ' Sordello ' ? One 
 can imagine one of Mr. Swinburne's more recent 
 poems — the ' Tale of Balen,' — being denied to 
 him if it had been published anonymously. It 
 is very different both in metre and in manner 
 from his other writings. We must reckon with 
 versatility in an author, and expect to find con- 
 siderable differences in what he writes. We must 
 also reckon upon his sometimes falling below his 
 usual level. I do not feel sure that the often- 
 condemned passage in the Antigone (904-920) 
 is not by Sophocles. 
 
 These illustrations have protracted themselves 
 so much that little time remains for considering 
 the subject of palaeography. The scientific study 
 of MSS. belongs to the present century. The 
 earlier scholars tended to consult MSS. at hap- 
 hazard. When the critic came to a difficult 
 passage, he looked at various MSS. or readings 
 from them, and selected anything that took his 
 fancy whether the authority for it was good or 
 bad. All this has been changed, and the study 
 of texts has become a ' disciplina ' or ' fxeOoSog,' 
 with a distinct scientific and therefore educa- 
 tional value, though it must always belong to
 
 AIMS AND METHODS 335 
 
 professional scholars rather than to students of 
 literature. The modern palaeographer aims at 
 making out a kind of ' genealogical tree ' for the 
 texts of his author, determining which are copies 
 of which — which copies of one lost archetype, 
 which of another. Wolf, who was by no means 
 a mere sceptic, but did much solid work for the 
 advancement of ' philology,' expressed the prin- 
 ciple of this study in an epigram when he 
 described manuscripts as ' surda plerumque 
 oracula, nisi constanter consulentibus ' — oracles 
 which are generally dumb to all but persistent 
 inquirers. 
 
 Finally, what shall we say of this study of 
 philology as a whole — the study of the language, 
 the literature, and the life and thought of an 
 ancient people — three things which we placed in 
 an ascending scale of importance ? It might 
 perhaps be supposed that the last of them can 
 be attained without the other two, or the two 
 highest without the lowest ; that all we need do 
 is to read some clear and eloquent account of 
 the life and thought of the ancients, or some 
 authoritative critical treatise on the ancient 
 authors, in order to get all the real advantage 
 that can be got from a classical training. This
 
 ,336 LECTURES ON CLASSICAL SUBJECTS 
 
 view is quite illusory. Generalisations about 
 the life and thought of a past age are mere 
 empty phrases, unless we possess some direct 
 acquaintance with that life and thought. Critical 
 description of an author's merits and defects 
 is one of the most useless forms of human 
 knowledge, unless we can read the author our- 
 selves, and feel that it is true. The key to 
 the whole lies in the laborious mastery of details 
 — in the first instance, in minutely accurate 
 study of grammar and idiom. 
 
 If it be true that many or most theological 
 controversies arise ' ex ignoratione grammaticae,' 
 and if in the sphere of law it is a not uncommon 
 occurrence that important issues depend on the 
 place of a comma or on some minute point of 
 verbal interpretation, it is evident that there can 
 be no short and easy way to the kind of insight 
 which is the scholar's aim. We must climb the 
 hill step by step, if we are to see for ourselves 
 the prospect which it commands from its summit.
 
 INDEX OF NAMES AND SUBJECTS. 
 
 Accent, Latin, 240 sqq., 328 ; 
 
 Greek, 241, 328. 
 Accius, 116. 
 Achilles, 41, 80-1. 
 Acontius, 148. 
 Acragas, 63. 
 Admetus, 75. 
 Adonis, 226. 
 Aeetes, 87. 
 Aegisthus, 141. 
 Aeneas, 94. 
 Aeolians, 142. 
 Aeschylus, 18, 21-2,62, 84, 118, 
 
 166, 229 n., 267, 325 ; Agam., 
 119 n., 233; Persae, 84, 93, 
 
 167, 233; Prometh., 13. 
 Agamemnon, 141. 
 
 Age of bronze, 87, 106 n. ; of 
 gold, 102 sqq.; of iron, 107 ; 
 of silver, 106. 
 
 Ajax, 16, 81, 84. 
 
 Alcaeus, 137. 
 
 Alcaic stanza, 236, 253. 
 
 Alcibiades, 267. 
 
 Alcman, 229. 
 
 Alexander the Aetolian, 227. 
 
 Alexandria, 146. 
 
 Alexandrian poets and poetry, 
 15, 26, 86, 112, 144 jr/^., 228, 
 270 ; influence at Rome, 153, 
 271, 277 ; criticism, 269 sqq. 
 
 Anacreon, 175, 218, 230. 
 ' Analogia,' 272, 278. 
 Anchises, 68. 
 Andronicus, 277. 
 Aninia Mundi, 68. 
 Anthesteria, 49. 
 Antlieus, Tale of, 227. 
 Anthology, quoted, 25 n., 
 
 45 n. 
 Antigone, 16, 93. 
 Antimachus, 144; Thebais, 144; 
 
 Lyde, 145. 
 Antiphanes, 164. 
 ' Antispast,' 236-7. 
 Aphrodite, 78, 151. 
 Apollo, 130, 138, 149- 
 Apollonius, 87, 106 n., 148 sqq., 
 
 152, 270. 
 Aratus, 112, 284. 
 Arcadia, 1 16. 
 Archilochus, 18, 175, 222. 
 Arctinus, 82. 
 Ares, 78. 
 Argonauts, 150. 
 Arignotus, 98. 
 Aristarchus, 318, 331. 
 Aristides, 53. 
 Aristophanes (Comicus), Clouds, 
 
 19; Frogs, 55; Peace, 56 ; 
 
 Knights, 323 ; Frag. , 37. 
 Aristophanes (Grammaticus), 
 
 317- 
 Y
 
 338 LECTURES ON CLASSICAL SUBJECTS 
 
 Aristotle, 39, 53,289-90; Ethics, 
 3; Rhet., 167; Poetics, 170, 
 174, 177, 201, 221, 227, 266. 
 
 Arnold, M., 3, 21, 134. 
 
 Arsinoe, 147. 
 
 Artemis, 148. 
 
 Arval Brothers, 52. 
 
 Asconius, 121. 
 
 Asclepiadaean verse, 252 sqq., 
 258. 
 
 Astraea, 113, 115. 
 
 Athena, 138. 
 
 Athens, 142, 
 
 Atlantis, 18, 103. 
 
 Atreus and Thyestes, Tale of, 
 14. 
 
 Attic drama, 24 ; comedy, 25. 
 
 Attis, 20. 
 
 Augustus, 120, 129-30, 181, 
 
 307. 
 Ausonius, 29. 
 
 B 
 
 Bacchants, 20, 57. 
 
 Bacchylides, 48. 
 
 ' Basis,' 253, 257. 
 
 Bassus, Caesius, 246. 
 
 Bentley, 299, 320, 332. 
 
 Berenice, 147. 
 
 Besant, Sir W., The Revolt of 
 
 Man, 103. 
 Boccaccio, 292. 
 Boebean Lake, 137. 
 Bracciolini, Poggio, 293. 
 Bradley, Mr. A. C, 203. 
 Briseis, 77. 
 
 Browning, 11, 147, 333. 
 Brundisium, journey to, 19 ; 
 
 treaty of, 121, 
 
 Buchanan, George, 294. 
 Burns, 7. 
 Byron, 3. 
 
 Byzantium, study of Greek at, 
 289. 
 
 Cacus, 83. 
 
 Cadmus, 85, 181. 
 
 Caecilius, 276. 
 
 Caesar, Jul., 48 ; De Analogia, 
 
 278. 
 Caesura, 224 sqq., 244, 262. 
 Callimachus, 42, 86, 138, 148, 
 
 229, 270. 
 Callinus, 227. 
 Calpurnius, Eclogues, 128. 
 Can tores Euphorionis, 129, 
 
 277. 
 Capitoline hill, 30, 115. 
 Casaubon, 295-7. 
 Castor and Pollux, 77, 81, 
 Catalexis, 214. 
 Catullus, 244 sqq., 271 ; Attis, 
 
 20, 261 ; Epithal., 124 n.; 
 
 quoted, 7, 20, 71- 
 Cave, ' magic ' of, 21. 
 Celts, 3, 21, 134. 
 Cephalus, 38. 
 Ceres, 52. 
 Charon, 67. 
 Charybdis, 133, 138. 
 Chaucer, 154, 190. 
 Choerilus, 166. 
 Choriambus, 254. 
 Cicero, 27, 113, 116, 185, 279; 
 
 De Or at., 162 ; Aratea, 244 ; 
 
 Brutus, 285 ; discovery of 
 
 De Re Publica, 304 ; quoted, 
 
 19, 162.
 
 INDEX OF NAMES AND SUBJECTS 339 
 
 Cinna, S7?iyma, 229 n. 
 
 Circe, 87. 
 
 Ciris, 129, 193. 
 
 Classical studies, revival of, 
 
 289. 
 Cleombrotus of Anibracia, 42. 
 Cleon, III, 323. 
 Cleisthenes, 50. 
 Clough, Bothie of Tober-na- 
 
 Vuolich, 223. 
 Clytaemnestra, 84, 141. 
 Cobet, 274. 
 Colchis, 87. 
 
 Coinmata Sotadeorum, 224. 
 Consolatio nd Liviam, 323. 
 Corinna, 266. 
 Coronis, 137. 
 Crates, 109, 114 n. 
 Crates, of Mallos, 274. 
 Cretic verse, 222. 
 Criticism, literary, 263, 323 sqq. ; 
 
 in Greece, 266 ; at Alexandria 
 
 and Pergamos, 269 ; at Rome, 
 
 274 sqq. 
 Cult of the dead, 42 sqq. 
 Cumacum carmen, 107 n. 
 ' Cyclic ' Dactyl (5d/cTiiXo? 
 
 Tplarifios), 234 sqq., 254. 
 ' Cyclic ' poets, 80. 
 Cyclops, 138. 
 Cydippe, 148. 
 Cyrenc, 44. 
 
 D 
 
 Dactylic measure, 2 1 1 sqq. 
 Dante, 192, 291. 
 Daphnis, 140. 
 Dares Phrygius, 156. 
 Darius, 93. 
 Delphi, cave at, 22. 
 
 Demeter, 51, 54, 92. 
 Demosthenes, 333. 
 Diaeresis, 224, 253, 257, 259. 
 Dialect, in Greek and Roman 
 
 Literature, 195. 
 Diana Nemorensis, 26. 
 Diapontius, 97. 
 Dictys Cretensis, 156. 
 Dido, 49, 93, 154. 
 Dike, 112. 
 
 Diogenes, the cynic, 56. 
 Diomede, 78. 
 Dionysius of Halicarnassus, 
 
 221. 
 Dionysus, worship of, 20, 47, 
 
 5i» 57 sqq. 
 Dis Pater, 52, 65. 
 Dithyramb, 166, 325. 
 Dochmiac measure, 175. 
 Dorians, 142. 
 Dramatic poetry, 135. 
 Dreams, spirits seen in, 72. 
 
 Echetlos, 48 n. 
 
 Eclipses, ancient view of, 72. 
 
 Electra, 141. 
 
 Elegiac measure, 175, 226 ; 
 
 poets, 82. 
 Eleusis, 42, 50 sqq. 
 Elmsley, 301. 
 Elysium, 46. 
 Empedocles, loS. 
 Ennius, 184, 197, 241, 277. 
 Epaminondas, 57. 
 Epic poetry, 135. 
 Erasmus, 294. 
 Erichtho, 89. 
 Eridanus, 70. 
 
 Y 2
 
 340 LECTURES ON CLASSICAL SUBJECTS 
 
 Erinyes, 74 sqq. 
 
 Erotici scriptores, 155- 
 
 Eteocles, 94. 
 
 Euathlos, 139. 
 
 Eubatides, 99. 
 
 Eucrates, 99. 
 
 Euias, 57. 
 
 Eupolis, III. 
 
 Eupraxides, 157. 
 
 Eurybates, 1 10. 
 
 Euripides, 25, 143-4, 167, 267, 
 
 325 ; Bacch., 20 n., 25, 231 ; 
 
 Cresph., 58 ; Electr., 14 ; 
 
 Hec, 45 n., 84 ; Hel., 44; 
 
 Hippo/. , 36, 62 ; loji, 20 n. ; 
 
 Phaethon, 25 ; Rhesus, 230 ; 
 
 Fragm., 85. 
 
 Facciolati, 301 n. 
 
 Fates (Motpai), 75. 
 
 Faunus, 26. 
 
 Feralia, 65. 
 
 Forcellini, 301 n. 
 
 France, classical study in, 295. 
 
 Fronto, 278. 
 
 Furies, the, 74. 
 
 G 
 
 Gades, 83. 
 
 Gallus, Asinius, 121 sqq.; Cor- 
 nelius, 193 ; character in Vir- 
 gil's Eclogues, 15. 
 
 Germanicus, 113. 
 
 Geryon, 83. 
 
 Getae, 58. 
 
 Ghosts, in ancient imagination, 
 95 sqq. 
 
 Gleditsch, Prof., Metrik, 236, 
 
 238. 
 Glyconic verse, 246 sqq., 253. 
 Golden bough. The, 69. 
 Guido, 154. 
 
 H 
 
 Hades, 4c, 42, 46, 62 n. , 92. 
 
 Plarmodius, 46. 
 
 Haupt, 304. 
 
 Headlam, Mr. W., m Journal 
 of Hellenic Studies, 231. 
 
 Hecate, 187. 
 
 Hector, 79, 94. 
 
 Hecuba, 84. 
 
 Hegesippus, 333. 
 
 Helios, 76, 83, 87. 
 
 Hendecasyllabic verse, 245. 
 
 Hephaestus, 83. 
 
 Heracles, 47, 48 n., 83. 
 
 Heraclides Ponticus, 246. 
 
 Heraclitus, 74. 
 
 Here, 74-5. 
 
 Hermes, 52. 
 
 Hermesianax, 229. 
 
 Herodotus, 58. 
 
 Hero-worship, 42 sqq. 
 
 Hesiod, 46, 74, 103, 123, 137, 
 167, 266. 
 
 Hexameter, 211. 
 
 Hippias, of Elis, 109 
 
 Hipponax, 175, 222. 
 
 Homer, 2, 67 n. , 86, 132 sqq., 
 158 sqq., 190, 265, 267 ; out- 
 look on Nature, 6, 10, 18 ; on 
 the state of the dead, 39 sqq., 
 44, 70, 93 sqq. ; supernatural in, 
 74 sqq.; 'romance' in, 133; 
 metaphors, igo. 
 
 Homeric Hymn, 51.
 
 INDEX OF NAMES AND SUBJECTS 341 
 
 Horace, 19, 28, 48 n., 126, 186, 
 189, 204, 280, 284, 327; 
 metres of, 228, 246, 351 sqq. ; 
 Odes, 252 sqq., 320, 324, 330, 
 332 ; Epodcs, 89, 124; Satires, 
 19, 89 ; Ars Poetua, 85, 279. 
 
 Hypsipyle, 154. 
 
 I 
 
 lakchos, 57. 
 
 Ictus, 209 sqq. 
 
 Idiom, poetic, 181 sqq. 
 
 Idyll, 147, 271. 
 
 ' Iliu Persis,' 82. 
 
 Immich, theory of elegiac verse, 
 
 226. 
 lonians, 142. 
 
 Ionic verse, 175, 217 sqq., 230. 
 Iphition, 159. 
 ' Islands of the Blest,' 47. 
 Italy, classical revival in, 
 
 291 sqq. 
 Ixion, 66. 
 
 J 
 
 Janus, 115. 
 
 Jason, 150. 
 
 Jebb, Sir R., 163, 274. 
 
 Jewish ideas at Rome, 120, 124. 
 
 Julius Caesar, 48, 278. 
 
 Justice (Ak?;), 23. 
 
 Juvenal, 327. 
 
 K 
 
 Kalyke, 139. 
 
 Konrad, of Wllrtzburg, 157. 
 
 Kronos, 23, 59, and Lecture 
 
 IV., passim. 
 Kypris, 109. 
 
 Lachmann, 304. 
 
 Laestrygones, 133. 
 
 Lambinus, 295. 
 
 Landscape painting in Greece, 9. 
 
 Laocoon, 81. 
 
 Laomedon, 81. 
 
 Lemuria, 49. 
 
 Lessing, 67. 
 
 Life after death, ancient belief 
 
 in, 37 sqq. 
 Linacre, 294. 
 ' Logaoedic ' verse, 248, 
 Longinus, on metre, 205. 
 Looking Back, 103. 
 Lowell, J. R., quoted, 175. 
 Lucan, 88, 319. 
 Lucian, Charidemos, 23 ; Philop- 
 
 seuda, 98; Vera Hist., 156. 
 Lucilius, 243, 275. 
 Lucretius, 3, 28, 43, 90, 118, 
 
 191, 194, 278. 
 Lyde, 145. 
 Lynceus, 81. 
 
 Lyric poetry, i3S-f^!7. ; poets, 82. 
 Lytton, Coming Race, 103. 
 
 M 
 
 Machaon, 81. 
 Madvig, 305. 
 Mai, Angclo, 303. 
 Makar, 77, 
 Manes, 37. 
 Mania, 52. 
 Marcellus, 68, 70. 
 Martial, 130, 248. 
 Massilia, 125.
 
 342 LECTURES ON CLASSICAL SUBJECTS 
 
 Mater Larum, 52. 
 
 Medea, 87, 151. 
 
 Meleager, 6. 
 
 Melkarth, 77. 
 
 Menelaus, 41. 
 
 Metamorphoses, 85. 
 
 Metaphor, in poetry, 188. 
 
 Methods, of study, 313 sqq. 
 
 Metonymy, 186. 
 
 Metre, theories of, 205 sqq.; 
 
 effect of theory on practice of, 
 
 246 sqq. 
 Milton, quoted, 185. 
 Mimnermus, 83, 144, 227, 266. 
 Minos, 62 n. 
 Minyas, 67 n. 
 Moellendorff, Wilamowitz v. , 
 
 De Versu Phal., 249. 
 Mountains, Greek view of, 
 
 17 sqq. 
 Muretus, 294. 
 Mycenae, 45. 
 Mystae, 55. 
 Mysteries, 42, 51 sqq. 
 
 N 
 Naevius, 66 n. 
 Nature, i sqq. ; modern feeling 
 
 for, 4 sqq. ; Greek feeling for, 
 
 8 sqq. ; Roman, 15, 27 sqq. ; 
 
 Nature and Convention, 22 
 
 sqq., 72, 109. 
 Nepos, Cornelius, 156. 
 Nero, 128, 157, 327. 
 Niebelungenlied, 2. 
 Niebuhr, 305. 
 Nirvana, 68. 
 Numa, 128. 
 Nyx, 59. 
 
 o 
 
 Odysseus, 19, 40, 76, 81, 84. 
 
 Oedipus, 76, 94. 
 
 Olympus, 47. 
 
 Onomacritus, 59, 60. 
 
 Orcagna, 66. 
 
 Orcus, 65, 97. 
 
 Orestes, 84, 141. 
 
 Orpheus, i84n. 
 
 Orphic hymn to Nature, 23, 34 ; 
 
 rites, 42, 57 sqq. 
 Osiris, 76. 
 Ossian, 2, 3. 
 Ovid, 85, 86, 154, 227 ; Idzs, 
 
 228; quoted, 134, 143, 175. 
 
 Pales, 26. 
 
 Palladium, 81. 
 
 Parthenius, 153, 277. 
 
 Pataecion, 57- 
 
 ' Pathetic Fallacy,' 5, 30, 34. 
 
 Patroclus, 41, 45 n., 50, 92, 93. 
 
 Pattison, Mark, Life ofCasaubon, 
 
 296. 
 Pelias, 87. 
 Penelope, 76. 
 Pergamos, criticism at, 270, 272 ; 
 
 study of Rhetoric at, 281. 
 Persius, 192. 
 Persephone, 51, 59, 62. 
 Petrarch, 292. 
 Phaedra, 144. 
 Phalaecean verse, 247 sqq. 
 Phanes, 59. 
 
 Pherecratean verse, 247 sqq. 
 Pherecrates, 109. 
 Phidias, 142.
 
 INDEX OF NAMES AND SUBJECTS 343 
 
 Philoctetes, 16. 
 
 ' Philology,' 310. 
 
 Philoxenus, 168. 
 
 Phocaeans, 125. 
 
 Phrynondas, 1 10. 
 
 Pilatus, Leonlius, 292. 
 
 Pindar, 18, 21, 44, 46, 54, 63, 
 
 150, 230, 266, 324, 329. 
 Pisistratus, inscription on statue 
 
 of, 320. 
 Plato, 39, 40, 42, 47 n., 61, 108, 
 
 144-5, 205 ; Crilias, 9, iS ; 
 
 Phaed7-us, 9 ; Politicus, ill; 
 
 Republic, 38, 64, 67 n., 218. 
 Plautus, 276, 282 ; Mostellaria, 
 
 95 ; Ambrosian ms. of, 304. 
 Pliny, the younger, 32 sqq. 
 Plisthenidas, 141 n. 
 Podalirius, 81. 
 Poetic truth, 268. 
 Poetry, language of, 162 sqq.; 
 
 why metrical, 174 sqq. 
 Pollio, Asinius, 120, 129, 
 
 281. 
 Pollux, 47, 48 n. 
 Polydorus, 84. 
 Polynices, 94. 
 Polyxena, 81. 
 Porson, 301, 308. 
 Proclus, 81. 
 Procne, 85. 
 Prometheus, 14, 1 19. 
 Propertius, 227, 228 n., 283. 
 Proserpina, 68. 
 Pythagorean doctrines, 42, 59, 
 
 114, 115 n. 
 
 Quintilian, 189 n., 19S, 285-7. 
 
 R 
 
 Ramsay, Prof. W. M., 124. 
 
 Recitations at Rome, 281. 
 
 Reuchlin, 294. 
 
 Rhadina, 139. 
 
 Rhavinusia virgo, 319. 
 
 Ribbeck, 305. 
 
 Ritschl, 241 n., 304. 
 
 Rivers, Greek epithets for, 17. 
 
 Rohde, 36n., 37 n., ii5n. 
 
 Roman characteristics, 113. 
 
 Romance, ancient, 132 sqq.; 
 
 meaning of term, 158. 
 Romulus, 47. 
 Rossetti, quoted, 5. 
 Rousseau, 2. 
 Ruskin, 5 sqq., lO. 
 
 Sapphic stanza, 224, 252 sqq. 
 
 Sappho, 12, 136. 
 
 Sarpedon, 75. 
 
 Saturn, 1 1 5. See under Kronos. 
 
 Saturnalia, W^ sqq. 
 
 Saturnia, 115. 
 
 Scaliger, 294-5, 297. 
 
 Scazon, 175, 222. 
 
 Schmidt, J. II., Periodometry, 
 
 231. 
 Scipios, confused by Horace, 
 
 320. 
 Scott, Sir Walter, 2, 30. 
 Sculpture, Greek, 9. 
 Scylla and Charybdis, 79, 134. 
 Sedigitus, Volcacius, 276. 
 Semele, 60. 
 Semonides, 266.
 
 344 LECTURES ON CLASSICAL SUBJECTS 
 
 Seneca, enthusiasm for Nature, 
 
 33, 251, 252 n. 
 Sextus Pompeius, 88. 
 Shelley, Alas/or, 7; Hellas, 12']. 
 Sigeum, inscription from, 196. 
 Silius, 186. 
 Silvanus, 34. 
 Sisyphus, 40. 
 Skutsch, Prof. Franz, Aus 
 
 VergiPs Friihzeit, 129. 
 Slave labour, ill. 
 Socrates, view of nature, 9. 
 Solon, 227, 266. 
 Sophocles, 142, 190, 266 ; 
 
 Ajax, 16 ; Antigone, 230, 
 
 325, 334 ; Electra, 16 ; Oed. 
 
 Col., 17 n., 38 n., 76 ; Track., 
 
 17 n.; Fragvi., 55. 
 Sotadean verse, 249. 
 Spercheus, 45 n. 
 Spondee, 212. 
 Statius, 32 ; quoted, 130, 151 n., 
 
 186 n. 
 Stesichorus, 83-4, 139 sqq., 229. 
 Stilo, Aelius, 275. 
 Strato, quoted, 162. 
 Sunrise, primitive explanation 
 
 of, 82. 
 Supernatural, in ancient litera- 
 ture, 71 sqq. 
 Swift, Art of Sinking in Poetry, 
 
 166, 178. 
 Swinburne, quoted, 183. 
 'Syncope,' metrical effect of, 
 
 232 sqq. 
 Synesius, bishop, 249. 
 
 Tacitus, Annals, 73. 
 Talos, 87. 
 
 Tantalus, 40, 66. 
 
 Tartarus, 62 n. 
 
 Taitriformis, of a river, 17 ; 
 
 cf. 174. 
 Taygetus, 81. 
 Teleclides, no. 
 Telephus, 81. 
 Tellus, 52. 
 Tennyson, 5 n., 15, 55 n., 92, 
 
 163, 185, 192, 203. 
 Terence, 243. 
 Terra, 52. 
 Thales, 73. 
 Thanatos, 65. 
 Thasos, description of, 18. 
 Theoclymenus, 79, 134. 
 Theocritus, 15, 37, 86, 270; 
 
 quoted, i. 
 Theognis, 13, 225. 
 Theopropides, 95. 
 There, 63. 
 Thersites, 81. 
 
 Theseus, 78 ; at Marathon, 48 n. 
 Thessaly, 87-8. 
 Thomson, Seasons, 2. 
 Tibullus, 28. 
 Timotheus, 168, 237 n. 
 Tiresias, 40. 
 Titans, 60. 
 Tityus, 40. 
 
 Tower of Kronos, 64. 
 Tragedy, Greek, 83, 196. 
 Tranio, 95. 
 Trausoi, 58. 
 Trochaic verse, 213 sqq. 
 Trojan war, later development 
 
 of story of, 1 56. 
 Trygaeus, 56. 
 
 Tuscan conception of death, 66. 
 Tyrtaeus, 227.
 
 INDEX OF NAMES AND SUBJECTS 345 
 
 U 
 Uranos, 59. 
 Utopia, 102 sqq. 
 
 V 
 
 Varro, Saturae, 245. 
 
 Virgil, 27, 39, 67, 6% sqq., 87, 
 185, 187, 189, 191 sqq., 291, 
 331 ; idea of Nature's sym- 
 pathy, 15, 31 ; descriptions of 
 Nature, 28 ^(/^. ; Eclogues, 15, 
 87; Eel. iv., 119 sqq., 
 Georgics, 28, 30, 118 ; quoted; 
 117 n.; Aeneid, 30, 90-2, 120, 
 159. 193; quoted, 21 n., 44, 
 45 n., 50, 60, 64, 102, 208. 
 
 Volusius, Annales, 271. 
 
 W 
 Warde Fowler, Mr., 115. 
 
 Whitehead, on Nature, I. 
 Witchcraft, in poetry, 86 sqq. 
 Wolf, 302. 
 Women, Greek treatment of, 
 
 142. 
 Wordsworth, feeling for Nature, 
 
 3-5, 22 sqq.; poetic diction, 
 
 164, 178. 
 
 Xanthus, 74. 
 
 Zagreus, 59. 
 Zenodotus, 317. 
 
 Zeus, 59, 74-5, 81, 108, 115, 
 117 sqq.; X66vios, 52.
 
 INDEX OF GREEK WORDS. 
 
 dyopala prj/xara, I J"/. 
 
 dypoi, 25, 32. 
 
 cLKOLvuvriTos (of Natui'e), 23, 34. 
 
 oXk-t), 164. 
 
 dvaKXaaLS, 249. 
 
 avaXoyla, 272. 
 
 dv6fJ.cfJios , for afo/ios, 323. 
 
 dviofiaXLa, 272-4. 
 
 dpfjiara, 180. 
 
 dpfxovia, 201. 
 
 dpais, 209. 
 
 dpTiojs, 176. 
 
 drexi'ws, 1 76. 
 
 jSwM^s, 45- 
 
 7XcD(T<rat, 1 80. 
 
 ypafifiaTiKos and ypafi/xaricTTris, 
 
 268. 
 yvprj, ddfiap, irapaKoiris, 1 95. 
 
 8aifJL6vios and dal/xuv, 99. 
 
 5a^j, 273. 
 
 56/tos and dui/xa, 163-4. 
 
 etduiXov, 92, 95. 
 ^ya^xos, 176. 
 evayi^eiv =parentare, 44. 
 'Ej/oSia, 87. 
 eiraoiSij (eVajS?;), 80. 
 
 iaxdpo., 45. 
 ^reov, 176. 
 'Erepwoi'iUej'a, 85. 
 
 fd^eos, 21, 30. 
 
 TjepoeiSis, 21. 
 
 T/pws, 44, 47. 
 
 ^etos, 21. 
 
 ^e6s, V?, Tw ^eai, 319. 
 
 ^f'cris, 209. 
 
 6lauoi, 58. 
 
 dveLv = sacrificare, 44. 
 
 ru7f, 151, 
 
 'Iw;'£K-oi di'a/cXco^ej'o;, 21 7 -f^^- 
 
 Kadap/Jioi, 61, 80. 
 /cdpa, 196. 
 Kepavvcoacs, 60. 
 Kp6i'ta, 116 
 
 kvkXlkos, applied to Epic poets, 
 86. 
 
 KUlXoV, 225. 
 
 X07OS, 31 !• 
 
 Xi'/treis and XvaLoi deal, 61. 
 
 /ixd/capes dv7)Toi, 107. 
 fxaKapLrrjs, 37.
 
 INDEX OF GREEK WORDS 
 
 347 
 
 fiaKapuiv vTJaoi, 46, 64. 
 fiaffxa^i-cr/J-os, 94. 
 /j^dxoLLpai, 180. 
 fi^rpa wpuTOTVira, 206, 218. 
 fierpiic^, 208 J'^i/. 
 fii/x.7i(rLS, 170 5^^. 
 /iot/)o, 75. 
 IxoxSrjpos, 177 n. 
 
 Nei/coj, personified, 108. 
 peKTapeos, 326. 
 vdfxos, 109. 
 
 TraXlfixpTjcTTOS, 303. 
 irapafivdia, 23. 
 ■wivdos, 63. 
 iripas and 6.Tr€ipov, 20. 
 
 pvdfUKTi, 208 j'^^. 
 pvdfjids, 201. 
 
 ffKvpurra 656s, 44. 
 
 (TTrofOetdfoi'Tes, 212. 
 (TVfKpopal pov\evfj.dTO}v, in Sopho- 
 cles, 181. 
 ffwdrjKrj, 12, 109. 
 ffaJfia-ffTJ/xa, 60. 
 
 rd KadoXov, 170, 1 79, 203. 
 
 TaTet^oc, 177. 
 
 reXerat, 61. 
 
 TfiTird, ' sections ' of rhythm, 211. 
 
 (pepeoiKOs, 168. 
 (pdopd, 105. 
 (piXavdpuTria, 1 1 9. 
 ^i\ia, personified, 108. 
 ^tX6Xo7os, 311. 
 (po^elffdai {(p6l3oi), 331. 
 (pbvoi, 115 n. 
 0t''o-ts, 12, 72. 
 
 Xpv^^ol, in inscriptions, 38. 
 xOovioi deoi, 48, 50. 
 X/36i'0(, 208 Ji/^.
 
 INDEX OF LATIN WORDS. 
 
 abies, 198. 
 altus, 331. 
 anima mundi, 68. 
 autumo, 198. 
 
 caducus, 181. 
 caedes, 115 n. 
 carina, 199. 
 carmen, 202. 
 
 divinus, 21 n. 
 durus, 245 n. 
 
 eius, 332. 
 enses, 180. 
 
 fari, 199. 
 ferrum, 198. 
 
 glacies aeris, 182. 
 grassator, 282. 
 
 hordea, 280. 
 
 immemor, 186. 
 inclutus, 199. 
 incurvicervicus, 198. 
 inferiae, 45. 
 
 laetus, 286. 
 ligones, 180. 
 
 marcidus, 186 n. 
 membrana, 303. 
 mirus, 194 
 
 mollis, 186, 228, 245. 
 mucro, 198. 
 
 niger, 186. 
 
 Orcus, 66. 
 
 parentare, 65. 
 perennitates, 185. 
 pressus, 286. 
 proles, 198. 
 puer, 130. 
 puppis, 199. 
 
 quadrupes, 198, 199. 
 
 ratis, 199. 
 recens, 332. 
 rigidus, 185. 
 rotarum lapsus, 183. 
 ruris amatores, 32. 
 
 sapientipotentes, 197. 
 sceptra, 180. 
 scriba, 282. 
 sonipes, 194, 199. 
 suboles, 199. 
 suus, 322. 
 
 tecta, 180, tectum, 198. 
 thesaurus, 66. 
 
 vates, 282. 
 
 GLASGOW : PRINTED AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS BY ROBERT MACLEHOSE AND CO.
 
 
 Date Due 
 
 
 M ^« '^ 
 
 
 
 
 MAR Z 7 1 
 
 967 
 
 
 
 WIAR 2 3 IS 
 
 67 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 ^brary Bureau Cat. No. 1137 
 
 AGILITY